How does electron configuration relate to the periodic table?

1 Answer
Apr 11, 2016

Electron configuration was used to group element with the same valance electron together. They also tend to have similar properties.

Explanation:

For simple explanation I will talk about only a representative element such as :
11Na : 1#s^2# 2#s^2# 2#p^6# 3#s^1#
19K : 1#s^2# 2#s^2# 2#p^6# 3#s^2# 3#p^6# 4#s^1#

you can see that Na and K was in the same group because their valance electron were in s orbital and only has 1 electron.
So if you do electron configuration with column 2 of periodic table you will also get 2 valance eleectrons in s orbital for Mg and Ca etc.