The year 2019 was the 150th anniversary of a foundational scientific achievement: the publication of the periodic table, which for the first time arranged the known elements into regular, predictable order. To mark the occasion, Bloomberg Businessweek celebrated the modern table and its 118 elements – the building blocks of everything. Think about how we need lithium for electric-vehicle batteries, silicon for computer chips, or helium for inflating balloons, and you start to get a sense of what makes the table such a compelling business story.