<P> In 1817 , Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner , a chemist , began to formulate one of the earliest attempts to classify the elements . In 1829 , he found that he could form some of the elements into groups of three , with the members of each group having related properties . He termed these groups triads . </P>
who was the first chemist that tried to group elements based on their properties
Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner