What pattern did John Newlands describe with the law of octaves?

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In 1865, the English chemist J.A.R. Newlands proposed the law of octaves, which identified a periodic pattern in the properties of chemical elements.12

Newlands observed that when elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic weight, those with similar physical and chemical properties recur at regular intervals. Specifically, he noted that every eighth element shared a resemblance to the first, a relationship he compared to the intervals of a musical scale.123

While initially controversial, this observation was one of the first to detect periodicity in the elements and served as a significant precursor to the development of the periodic law later established by Dmitri Mendeleev.123