Your professors lied to you about the periodic table and atomic numbers and the law of periodicity. For example, Hydrogen is in the right place based on its atomic number. However, it's in the alkali metals column and Hydrogen is not a metal.
Yes, it is. It simply is not one at Earth pressure and temperature. However, on Jupiter with the extreme pressure it is indeed a metal. Or as it comes close to absolute zero it also can solidify and become a metal.
The thing is, that was all known theoretically at the time the table was created. It was much later that was actually confirmed once we were able to manipulate pressures and temperatures in the lab to the point that we could verify that. In the same way that Mercury and Radon are metals. Even though at Earth pressure and temperature mercury is a liquid, and radon is a gas.
When my oldies station goes into its Metal programming I turn it off. That stuff can seriously harm your ears.
That comes up in astronomy almost to the level of being a joke. At some level, objects can be classified as gas or metal. Jupiter is gas. Earth is metal.
There are other anomalies in the periodic table. For example, the row of 15 elements in the F block contradicts quantum mechanics.
You have elements in the F block with P shells and D shells competing with the F shell violating Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion theory.
Kind of funny, the VSEPR theory on its Wikipedia page is the old theory that electrons are arranged in such a way as to minimize repulsion from each other. I took a Chemistry course at MIT, and the new VSEPR theory is electrons are arranged in such a way as to minimize shielding by inner shell electrons from outer shell electrons to the nucleus. The new theory is a kindler gentler kumbaya theory of how electrons are arranged in atoms compared to the old competitive VSEPR theory.
So after doing a little research, it looks like it is not so much lying as there just needs to be a better model. This is common in science. Saying that they are lying implies that there is malicious intent, which there does not appear to be.
