The graph you see above is a visual plot of the first ionization energy of an atom over the atoms

atomic number for the first three periods in the periodic table of the elements. This shows the overall
trends in the ionization energy of atoms. In this graph the resistance of the atom of the loss of its first
valence electron vs. its number of protons and electrons. This also shows how likely an element is to
react to another atom that is taking electrons.
According to periodic law the first ionization energy increases as it goes across the periods and
decreases as it goes down the groups in the periodic table. This is more clearly shown in the above
graph as you can see the dots representing the different elements ionization energies have a repeating
pattern which lowers slightly on every repetition. The two periods that most clearly show this are period
1 and period 2. (red and green, respectively) You can clearly see period 1s stair step pattern increasing
in energy and then repeating in period 3, save that the energies are slightly lower. Group 1 is circled and
shows the decrease along the groups better than just looking at the periods.
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Atomic Number
Trends in Ionization Energy
Period 1
Period 2
Period 3
Period 4
Group 1