Everything in the universe is made of chemical elements - including you. In 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev produced a periodic table designed to illustrate the properties of the known elements. This arrangement of the elements in order of increasing atomic number was an important milestone in the development of chemistry, and led to the establishment of periodic law. Written in a straightforward, easily comprehensible way, How the World Works: The Periodic Table explores the story of each element, describing the people who discovered them, and taking us on a journey of discovery into what the whole world is made of.