Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) [MEN-de-LAY-ev), Russian chemist and humanitarian recognized for numerous contributions to science, including chemistry, physical chemistry, physics, engineering, geodosy and economics, and to Russian society, most well known for having discovered that ordering the then (1869) known chemical elements, sixty-three in number, according to their increasing atomic weights, revealed a repeated cycle of recurrence, every seven elements, of their chemical and physical properties — i.e., the properties recurred as functions of the elements' atomic weights — a discovery that permitted him to predict subsequently experimentally established revised values for the atomic weights of several elements and, spectacularly importantly, the subsequently confirmed existence of yet undiscovered elements with atomic weights and properties required to fill in missing elements in an otherwise consistent periodicity in his ordering scheme, a scheme which chemists subsequently referred to as the periodic table of the chemical elements (Mendeleev and Jensen 2002).

Mendeleev was a driven man. In addition to producing his greatest work-the periodic law and periodic table of the elements-he researched, lectured, and wrote at a ferocious pace. A fine-print list of his published works takes up ten pages. Chemistry was the heart of his work, but he also played a major role in the economic development of Russia by modernizing that nation's weights and measures and through his advocacy of improved mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and trade. He fought ignorance and mysticism by reforming education and opening the sciences to women, and helped found and head the Russian Chemical Society. He habitually worked day and night, keeping himself going with a mixture of drive, determination, and strong Russian tea (Adler 2002).

Introduction

When, within a few years of the announcement of Mendeleev's ordering scheme in 1869, chemists discovered three new chemical elements (gallium, scandium, germanium) that accorded with his prediction of their atomic weights and properties, and after confirmation of his proposed revisions of the atomic weights for certain specified elements suggested by his periodic table, Mendeleev's contemporaries worldwide eventually came to recognize his discovery as a natural law of chemistry transcending taxonomy, and as a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the nature of physical reality, setting the stage for his successors, notably the 20th century Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, to formulate a theory of atomic structure and its regularities that explained Mendeleev's periodic law and the deviations to it discovered with the ever expanding discovery of new elements, in particular, the rare earth elements (Brush 1996).

As Robert Adler (2002) points out, Mendeleev's periodic law of the chemical elements "gave chemistry three gifts". It organized an otherwise jumble of seemingly disparate elements "into a well-ordered array in which both family traits and similarities to neighbors stood out clearly". As second gift, new to chemistry, it gave chemists the power to predict — "he stole from astronomers and physicists the power to predict". Thirdly, it gave to chemists (and physicists, as it turns out), including Mendeleev, a research agenda, that "something of great importance, something fundamental, must be at work to marshal the elements into such neat ranks and files." (Adler 2002).

As the theory of evolution ineluctably evokes the name of Charles Darwin, and the theory of relativity the name of Albert Einstein, the periodic law of the chemical elements evokes the name of Dmitri Mendeleev.

Mendeleev's life and work and 'world' he lived in

(PD) Drawing: http://www.russiamap.org/images/full/historical-phys-86.jpg
Mendeleev's birthplace.

As the 17th and last child of his parents, among the 14 who lived long enough to receive a Christian name, Dmitri Mendeleev entered the world on February 8, 1834 (Babaev 2009), in Tobolsk, a city founded in 1587, located in west-central Russia, in the heart of Western Siberia some 8° south of the Arctic Circle, southeast of Moscow (2385 km 1482 mi, by train), south of the confluence of two rivers, the Irtysh and Ob rivers, nearer the confluence of the Irtysh and Tobol rivers, on the bank of the Tobol in the bend of the Irtysh.....

References

• Adler R. (2002) Mendeleev Charts the Elements. In: Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation. Chapter 19. Pages 100-106.

• Babaev EV. (2009) Dmitriy Mendeleev: A Short CV, and A Story of Life.

• Brush SG. (1996) The Reception of Mendeleev's Periodic Law in America and Britain. ISIS 87(4): 595-628.
  • "After spending considerable time perusing the crumbling pages of late nineteenth-century chemistry journals and textbooks, I have confirmed the traditional account: Mendeleev's periodic law attracted little attention (at least in America and Britain) until chemists started to discover some of the elements needed to fill gaps in his table and found that their properties were remarkably similar to those he had predicted. The frequency with which the periodic law was mentioned in journals increased sharply after the discovery of gallium; most of that increase was clearly associated with Mendeleev's prediction of the properties of the new element (see Table 1), although in many cases it is difficult to prove a causal relation since the authors do not mention the prediction. By the late 1880s, most textbooks published in the United States and Britain discussed the periodic law to some extent..."

• Mendeleev DI, Jensen WB. (2002) Mendeleev on the Periodic Law: Selected Writings, 1869-1905. Selected and Edited by William B. Jensen. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-44571-2. | Table of Contents.
  • Publisher's Description: This is the first English-language collection of Mendeleev's most important writings on the periodic law. Thirteen papers and essays reflect the era corresponding to
    • the initial establishment of the periodic law,
    • the priority disputes and experimental confirmations, and
    • the ultimate acceptance for the law and increasing international recognition for Mendeleev.

• Morris R. (200x) The Last Sorcerers The Path From Alchemy to the Periodic Table. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 0-309-08905-0. | PDF download. | Google Books preview.
  • "As the field (chemistry) slowly progressed, another pioneer was to emerge almost 100 years later. Dmitri Mendeleev, an eccentric genius who cut his flowing hair and beard but once a year, sought to answer the most pressing questions that remained to chemists: Why did some elements have properties that resembled those of others? Were there certain natural groups of elements? And, if so, how many, and what elements fit into them? It was Mendeleev who finally addressed all these issues when he constructed the first Periodic Table in the late 1800s." | source of quote.

• Scerri ER. (2007) Mendeleev. In: The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance.Chapter 4, pp. 101-121. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195305739. | Google Books full-text Chapter 4 online.
  • "An important part of this investigation [this chapter] consists of trying to understand Mendeleev's conception of the nature of chemical elements. This issue forms the basis of what is perhaps the most philosophical aspect of the periodic system..."