The topic of perturbations of the periodic system raises the question on the conditions to perturb the current and future periodic system, which is related to Roald Hoffmann's thought on the human proclivity to confirm the periodic system. How likely is it to discover new elements that change the similarities supporting the periodic system? This is a rather unlikely event. Besides the current 118 elements, theoretical calculations indicate we cannot have more than 172 elements . Hence, in principle, the unknown 54 elements may perturb the system, however, they do not really challenge the status quo of the periodic system because their rather short lifetimes do not allow for actually exploring their chemistry as they decay before having the chance of forming compounds . What about perturbations to the periodic system by diversifying the chemistry of known elements? This requires that some elements of an existing family depict new valencies and that the number of formulas supporting these novelties surpasses those of the formulas supporting the existing similarities driven by known valencies. Achieving this requires developing new and diverse chemistry able to compete with more than two centuries of chemistry that support the current state of the periodic system. Although this seems unlikely given the exponential growth of the chemical space, that doubles its size about each 16 years , if the chemical community sets up to diversify the known chemistry at the historical speeds it has done it, it may be possible in a matter of two decades to change the shape of the periodic system. But there are some caveats for this enterprise. The new chemistry should rely the least on known chemistry to avoid lengthy synthesis bringing new formulas to the chemical space that enlarge the set of formulas supporting the known valencies it is aimed at challenging. This is the case, for instance, of compounds containing penta-valent carbons . Even in such extreme, but still realistic scenario, it is very unlikely that the periodic system will undergo changes in the future. A further approach to challenge the current periodic system involves syntheses at extreme conditions of pressure and temperature, which might unveil combination patterns not observed before for known compositions, as it has been already found for NaCl with its NaCl 3 , Na 3 Cl 7 and related compounds . This approach has the advantage of not adding to the set of formulas to be challenged. Nevertheless, changing the periodic system through extreme conditions would require the production of new stoichiometries that compete with the more than three and a half million of different formulas reported over the history of chemistry.