Jeff Moran's spiral
The Periodic Spiral puts every element on one continuous path of hexagons. Hydrogen sits at the center, and the path winds outward in atomic order. Apart from hydrogen, helium and the f block, each full loop is one row of the familiar table.
The design has had a long life. It was featured in The New York Times in 2006, became e-learning software for Windows and Mac, and is etched in granite on the entry floor of the Kendade Hall science center at Mount Holyoke College. In 2017 Jeff updated it: lanthanum and actinium moved into their series, and lutetium and lawrencium became group 3.
Three things it fixes
Hydrogen gets an honest seat
On the standard table hydrogen sits above the alkali metals, though it is a gas that often acts more like a halogen. On the spiral it sits at the center, touching both families, which is how it really behaves.
The f block comes home
The lanthanides and actinides usually live in a strip below the table, as if they were a footnote. On the spiral they sit in line, in order, where they belong.
One unbroken path
The standard table has big gaps at the top so the columns line up. The spiral has none: hydrogen to oganesson is a single sequence you can trace with a finger.
How to read it
- Rings are rows. Each loop is a period. The letters K through R name them after the outermost electron shell in that row.
- Spokes are families. Chemically similar elements line up along lines from the center, numbered 1 to 18 like the table's groups. The noble gases run straight up from helium.
- There's room to grow. Two empty seats wait past oganesson for elements 119 and 120. The table would need a new row; the spiral just keeps going. Who is trying to fill them?
What it doesn't do
The spiral is unfamiliar, and because the spokes point in different directions, it reads best once you know the standard table. Jeff has always presented it as a companion to the table rather than a replacement. That's why the Morph starts on the table you know and curls it into the spiral, so you can see exactly where everything goes.