The document discusses the organization of elements in the periodic table. It describes how early chemists like Dobereiner began organizing elements into groups based on their properties. Mendeleev later developed the periodic table by arranging elements in order of increasing atomic mass and placing those with similar properties in the same rows. The modern periodic table is organized by atomic number instead of mass and places elements with similar properties in the same columns. Elements are classified as metals, nonmetals or metalloids based on their general physical and chemical properties.