When Seaborg in 1944 introduced his 'actinide' concept, the theory played not the last role in his decision to place newly discovered elements in a second series where the filling of the 5f-shell takes place, similarly to the 'lanthanide' series where the filling of the 4f-shell takes place. Thus, the filled-shell concept was in accord with the newly found periodicity in chemical properties and resulted in the discovery of all the heavy actinides at that time. Since then, the theory advanced to such an extent that the Periodic Table is now predicted with a sufficient accuracy up to very high Z numbers. That was possible due to the development of very accurate relativistic quantum chemical methods and programs, which could reliably calculate electronic configurations of heavy element atoms and ions. In the presentation, the most resent results on the electronic structure calculations for the heaviest elements are discussed, and the modern shape of the Periodic Table is presented.    Figure. Modern Periodic Table of the Elements.

Glenn T. Seaborg and the modern Periodic Table of the Elements

244th National Meeting (2012)

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