So at this point, we know that the elements in the periodic table can be organized in two rows called periods and into columns called groups. Now within those groups, we can go a little bit further in our classification of these elements. We can classify them as being either transition metals or representative elements. Now when we say transition metals, this is the elements found in groups 3:00 to 12:00. So we're talking here about groups 3:00 to 12:00. They're called transition metals because that name symbolizes their varying charges.
O. For example, Mn is a transition metal. It's called manganese. Depending on what element it pairs with, it can have a positive charge ranging from plus one to 7. We don't have to worry about charges just yet, but realize that they're called transition metals because they have varying charges, different charges based on the elements near them. Now we're going to say also that, remember, between La and Hf we have this row of transition metals, and between Ac and Rf we have this row of transition metals. They're red. They're still transition metals, but because they're found inside these different pairs of transition metals, we call them the inner transition metals.
Now, besides that, we can say that we sometimes refer to the transition metals also as Group B elements. What does that mean? Well, that means we can further classify or label the groups 3:00 to 12:00. So Group 3, we can now label as group 3B. If we want four would be 4B, this would be 5B6B and 7B. Now here's the thing. Groups 8-9 and ten are all grouped together as group 8B, and then group 11 is 1B and group 12 is 2B. It's a little bit weird that it goes in this order, but again, knowing why exactly goes beyond the scope of this course, so don't worry about it. What's important is that our transition metals are Group B elements.
They're called transition metals because later on we'll see that some of them have multiple charges representative elements themselves, though the representative elements are the remaining elements not found in groups 3:00 to 12:00. So we're talking about groups one and two and then 13 to 18. They are sometimes referred to as our Group A elements or our main group elements. So if they're talking about Group A elements, main group elements, all that means is we're dealing with the representative elements.
Group 1A can be classified as group 1A2 would be two A, group 13 would be 3A and it will go all the way up to 8A. So this is just another way of looking at a particular group of the periodic table and this will be 8B8A O. Just remember when we talk about our groups, we can further break it down into transition metals and representative elements. Our representative elements are sometimes referred to as our Group A elements or main group elements, and our transition metal elements are referred to as our Group B elements.
