Dmitri Mendeleev

 

Dmitri Mendeleev is known as the father of the periodic chart of elements. He founded a method that enabled later scientists to discover elements that hadn't even been heard of yet according to the properties of the surrounding elements.

 

 

Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist who in the 1800's, became famous for the discovery one of the basic principals of chemistry. He collected thousands of facts about the 63 elements that were in existence and had already been discovered at that time. Scientists working before him had concluded that groups of elements had similar chemical and physical properties. His hunch was that a pattern or order must exist in all elements. He wrote a book recording all of his discoveries. He called it properties of chemistry. He wanted to be the first scientist to put the elements into an organized order. He did this according to many factors but mainly according to the order of increasing atomic gas. He was surprised and pleased to find that the elements were also organized in other ways. He called this chart that he had organized the periodic chart of elements.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907), the youngest of 17 children was born in the Siberian town of Tobol'sk where his father was a teacher of Russian literature and philosophy.
Mendeleev was not considered an outstanding student in his early education partly due to his dislike of the classical languages that were an important educational requirement at the time even though he
showed prowess in mathematics and science. After his father's death, he and his mother moved to St. Petersburg to pursue a university education. After being denied admission to both the University of
Moscow and St. Petersburg University because of his provincial background and unexceptional academic background, he finally earned a place at the Main Pedagogical Institute (St. Petersburg Institute).
Upon graduation, Mendeleev took a position teaching science in a gymnasium. After a time as a teacher, he was admitted to graduate work at St. Petersburg University where he earned a Master's degree in
1856. Mendeleev so impressed his instructors that he was retained to lecture in chemistry. After spending 1859 and 1860 in Germany furthering his chemical studies, he secured a position as professor of
chemistry at St. Petersburg University, a position he retained until 1890. While writing a textbook on systematic inorganic chemistry, Principles of Chemistry, which appeared in thirteen editions the last
being in 1947, Mendeleev organized his material in terms of the families of the known elements which displayed similar properties. The first part of the text was devoted to the well known chemistry of the
halogens. Next, he chose to cover the chemistry of the metallic elements in order of combining power -- alkali metals first (combining power of one), alkaline earths (two), etc. However, it was difficult to
classify metals such as copper and mercury which had multiple combining powers, sometimes one and other times two. While trying to sort out this dilemma, Mendeleev noticed patterns in the properties and
atomic weights of halogens, alkali metals and alkaline metals. He observed similarities between the series Cl-K-Ca , Br-/Rb-Sr and I-Cs-Ba. In an effort to extend this pattern to other elements, he created a
card for each of the 63 known elements. Each card contained the element's symbol, atomic weight and its characteristic chemical and physical properties. When Mendeleev arranged the cards on a table in
order of ascending atomic weight grouping elements of similar properties together in a manner not unlike the card arrangement in his favorite solitaire card game, patience, the periodic table was formed. From
this table, Mendeleev developed his statement of the periodic law and published his work On the Relationship of the Properties of the Elements to their Atomic Weights in 1869 (view a copy of Mendeleev's
table as published in Annalen supple. VIII, 133 (1871). The advantage of Mendeleev's table over previous attempts was that it exhibited similarities not only in small units such as the triads, but showed
similarities in an entire network of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal relationships. In 1906, Mendeleev came within one vote of being awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.

Good links:

Web-elements

History of periodic law

periodic table of elements

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