Dmitri Mendeleev

Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) [MEN-de-LAY-ev), Russian chemist, discovered a way to order the then known (1869) chemical elements, sixty-three in number, according to their increasing atomic weights , in such a way as to reveal a repeated cycle of recurrence, every seven elements, of their chemical and physical properties — the properties recurred as functions of the elements' atomic weights — and to permit the prediction of subsequently experimentally established revised values for the atomic weights of certain elements and, importantly, of the existence of yet undiscovered elements with atomic weights and properties required to fill in the missing elements in his ordering scheme, a scheme which chemists subsequently referred to as the periodic table of the chemical elements.

When, within a few years of the announcement of his 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 with confirmation of his revised atomic weights for specified elements, Mendeleev's contemporaries worldwide recognized his discovery as a natural law of chemistry transcending taxonomy, and as a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the nature of physical reality, leading 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.

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 Dimitri Mendeleev.

References

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

• 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. Dimitri 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 chemi¬cal elements. This issue forms the basis of what is perhaps the most philosophical aspect of the periodic system…"