Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev[b] (/ˌmɛndəlˈeɪəf/MEN-dəl-AY-əf;[2][c] 8 February [O.S. 27 January] 1834 – 2 February [O.S. 20 January] 1907) was a Russianchemist known for formulating theperiodic law and creating a version of theperiodic table of elements. He used the periodic law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight ofuranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered (germanium,gallium, andscandium).
Early life
Portraits of Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva and Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev (c. early 19th century)
Mendeleev was born in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, nearTobolsk inSiberia, to Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev (1783–1847) andMaria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva (née Kornilieva) (1793–1850).[3][4] Ivan worked as a school principal and a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy at theTambov andSaratov gymnasiums.[5] Ivan's father, Pavel Maximovich Sokolov, was aRussian Orthodox priest from theTver region.[6] As per the tradition of priests of that time, Pavel's children were given new family names while attending thetheological seminary,[7] with Ivan getting the family name Mendeleev after the name of a local landlord.[8]
Maria Kornilieva came from a well-known family of Tobolsk merchants, founders of the firstSiberian printing house who traced their ancestry to Yakov Korniliev, a 17th-centuryposad man turned a wealthy merchant.[9][10] In 1889, a local librarian published an article in the Tobolsk newspaper where he claimed that Yakov was a baptizedTeleut, an ethnic minority known as "whiteKalmyks" at the time.[11] Since no sources were provided and no documented facts of Yakov's life were ever revealed, biographers generally dismiss it as a myth.[12][13] In 1908, shortly after Mendeleev's death, one of his nieces publishedFamily Chronicles. Memories about D. I. Mendeleev where she voiced "a family legend" about Maria's grandfather who married "aKyrgyz orTatar beauty whom he loved so much that when she died, he also died from grief".[14] This, however, contradicts the documented family chronicles, and neither of those legends is supported by Mendeleev's autobiography, his daughter's or his wife's memoirs.[4][15][16] Yet some Western scholars still refer to Mendeleev's supposed "Mongol", "Tatar", "Tartarian" or simply "Asian" ancestry as a fact.[17][18][19][20]
Mendeleev was raised as anOrthodox Christian, his mother encouraging him to "patiently search divine and scientific truth".[21] His son Ivan would later inform that Mendeleev had departed from the Church and embraced a form of "romanticizeddeism".[22]
Mendeleev was the youngest of 17 siblings, of whom "only 14 stayed alive to be baptized" according to Mendeleev's brother Pavel, meaning the others died soon after their birth.[5] The exact number of Mendeleev's siblings differs among sources and is still a matter of some historical dispute.[23][d] Unfortunately for the family's financial well-being, his father became blind and lost his teaching position. His mother was forced to work and she restarted her family's abandoned glass factory. At the age of 13, after the passing of his father and the destruction of his mother's factory by fire, Mendeleev attended theGymnasium in Tobolsk.
In 1849, his mother took Mendeleev across Russia from Siberia to Moscow with the aim of getting Mendeleev enrolled at theMoscow University.[8] The university in Moscow did not accept him. The mother and son continued toSaint Petersburg to the father's alma mater. The now poor Mendeleev family relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he entered theMain Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After graduation, he contractedtuberculosis, causing him to move to theCrimean Peninsula on the northern coast of theBlack Sea in 1855. While there, he became a science master of the1st Simferopol Gymnasium. In 1857, he returned to Saint Petersburg with fully restored health.
Between 1859 and 1861, he worked on thecapillarity of liquids and the workings of thespectroscope inHeidelberg. Later in 1861, he published a textbook namedOrganic Chemistry.[26] This won him the Demidov Prize of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.[26]
On 4 April 1862, he became engaged to Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva, and they married on 27 April 1862 atNikolaev Engineering Institute's church in Saint Petersburg (where he taught).[27]
Mendeleev became a professor at theSaint Petersburg Technological Institute andSaint Petersburg State University in 1864,[26] and 1865, respectively. In 1865, he became a Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". He achievedtenure in 1867 at St. Petersburg University and started to teach inorganic chemistry while succeeding Voskresenskii to this post;[26] by 1871, he had transformed Saint Petersburg into an internationally recognized center for chemistry research.
Sculpture in honor of Mendeleev and the periodic table, located inBratislava, Slovakia
In 1863, there were 56 knownelements, with a new element being discovered at a rate of approximately one per year. Other scientists had previously identified periodicity of elements.John Newlands described aLaw of Octaves, noting their periodicity according to relative atomic weight in 1864, publishing it in 1865. His proposal identified the potential for new elements such asgermanium. The concept was criticized, and his innovation was not recognized by the Society of Chemists until 1887. Another person to propose a periodic table wasLothar Meyer, who published a paper in 1864 describing 28 elements classified by their valence, but with no predictions of new elements.
After becoming a teacher in 1867, Mendeleev wrotePrinciples of Chemistry (Russian:Основы химии,romanized: Osnovy khimii), which became the definitive textbook of its time. It was published in two volumes between 1868 and 1870, and Mendeleev wrote it as he was preparing a textbook for his course.[26] This is when he made his most important discovery.[26] As he attempted to classify the elements according to theirchemical properties, he noticed patterns that led him to postulate his periodic table; he claimed to have envisioned the complete arrangement of the elements in adream:[28][29][30][31][32]
I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary.
Unaware of the earlier work on periodic tables going on in the 1860s, he made the following table:
Cl 35.5
K 39
Ca 40
Br 80
Rb 85
Sr 88
I 127
Cs 133
Ba 137
By adding additional elements following this pattern, Mendeleev developed his extended version of the periodic table.[35][36] On 6 March 1869, he made a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society, titledThe Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements, which described elements according to bothatomic weight (now calledrelative atomic mass) andvalence.[37][38] This presentation stated that
The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weight, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties.
Elements which are similar regarding their chemical properties either have similar atomic weights (e.g., Pt, Ir, Os) or have their atomic weights increasing regularly (e.g., K, Rb, Cs).
The arrangement of the elements in groups of elements in the order of their atomic weights corresponds to their so-called valencies, as well as, to some extent, to their distinctive chemical properties; as is apparent among other series in that of Li, Be, B, C, N, O, and F.
The elements which are the most widely diffused have small atomic weights.
The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the character of the element, just as the magnitude of the molecule determines the character of a compound body.
We must expect the discovery of many yet unknown elements – for example, two elements, analogous to aluminium andsilicon, whose atomic weights would be between 65 and 75.
The atomic weight of an element may sometimes be amended by a knowledge of those of its contiguous elements. Thus the atomic weight oftellurium must lie between 123 and 126, and cannot be 128. (Tellurium's atomic weight is 127.6, and Mendeleev was incorrect in his assumption that atomic weight must increase with position within a period.)
Certain characteristic properties of elements can be foretold from their atomic weights.
Mendeleev published his periodic table of all known elements and predicted several new elements to complete the table in a Russian-language journal. Only a few months after, Meyer published a virtually identical table in a German-language journal.[39][40] Mendeleev has the distinction of accurately predicting the properties of what he calledekasilicon, ekaaluminium and ekaboron (germanium,gallium andscandium, respectively).[41][42]
Mendeleev also proposed changes in the properties of some known elements. Prior to his work,uranium was supposed to have valence 3 and atomic weight about 120. Mendeleev realized that these values did not fit in his periodic table, and doubled both to valence 6 and atomic weight 240 (close to the modern value of 238).[43]
For his predicted three elements, he used the prefixes of eka, dvi, and tri (Sanskrit one, two, three) in their naming. Mendeleev questioned some of the currently accepted atomic weights (they could be measured only with a relatively low accuracy at that time), pointing out that they did not correspond to those suggested by his Periodic Law. He noted thattellurium has a higher atomic weight thaniodine, but he placed them in the right order, incorrectly predicting that the accepted atomic weights at the time were at fault. He was puzzled about where to put the knownlanthanides, and predicted the existence of another row to the table which were theactinides which were some of the heaviest in atomic weight. Some people dismissed Mendeleev for predicting that there would be more elements, but he was proven to be correct when Ga (gallium) and Ge (germanium) were found in 1875 and 1886 respectively, fitting perfectly into the two missing spaces.[44]
By using Sanskrit prefixes to name "missing" elements, Mendeleev may have recorded his debt to the Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, who had created theories of language based on their discovery of the two-dimensional patterns of speech sounds (exemplified by theŚivasūtras inPāṇini'sSanskrit grammar). Mendeleev was a friend and colleague of the SanskritistOtto von Böhtlingk, who was preparing the second edition of his book onPāṇini[45] at about this time, and Mendeleev wished to honorPāṇini with his nomenclature.[46][47][48]
The original draft made by Mendeleev would be found years later and published under the nameTentative System of Elements.[49]
Dmitri Mendeleev is often referred to as the Father of the Periodic Table. He called his table or matrix, "the Periodic System".[50]
Later life
Dmitri Mendeleev in 1890Dmitri Mendeleev's second wife, Anna
In 1876, he became obsessed[citation needed] with Anna Ivanovna Popova and began courting her; in 1881 he proposed to her and threatened suicide if she refused. His divorce from Leshcheva was finalized one month after he had married Popova (on 2 April)[51] in early 1882. Even after the divorce, Mendeleev was technically abigamist; theRussian Orthodox Church required at least seven years before lawful remarriage. His divorce and the surrounding controversy contributed to his failure to be admitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences (despite his international fame by that time). His daughter from his second marriage, Lyubov, became the wife of the famous Russian poetAlexander Blok. His other children were son Vladimir (a sailor, he took part in the notableEastern journey of Nicholas II) and daughter Olga, from his first marriage to Feozva, and son Ivan and twins from Anna.
Though Mendeleev was widely honored by scientific organizations all over Europe, including (in 1882) theDavy Medal from theRoyal Society of London (which later also awarded him theCopley Medal in 1905),[52] he resigned from Saint Petersburg University on 17 August 1890. He was elected aForeign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1892,[1] and in 1893 he was appointed director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures, a post which he occupied until his death.[52]
Mendeleev also investigated the composition ofpetroleum, and helped to found the firstoil refinery in Russia. He recognized the importance of petroleum as a feedstock forpetrochemicals. He is credited with a remark that burning petroleum as a fuel "would be akin to firing up a kitchen stove with bank notes".[53]
Mendeleev was nominated forNobel Prize in Chemistry for the last three years of his life, 1905, 1906 and 1907 in 9 nominations.[54]In 1905, Mendeleev was elected a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences and received three nominations. The following year he received four nominations and theNobel Committee for Chemistry recommended to the Swedish Academy to award theNobel Prize in Chemistry for 1906 to Mendeleev for his discovery of the periodic system. He was also elected an International Member of theAmerican Philosophical Society.[55] The Chemistry Section of the Swedish Academy supported this recommendation. The academy was then supposed to approve the committee's choice, as it has done in almost every case. Unexpectedly, at the full meeting of the academy, a dissenting member of the Nobel Committee,Peter Klason, proposed the candidacy ofHenri Moissan whom he favored.Svante Arrhenius, although not a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, had a great deal of influence in the academy and also pressed for the rejection of Mendeleev, arguing that the periodic system was too old to acknowledge its discovery in 1906. According to the contemporaries, Arrhenius was motivated by the grudge he held against Mendeleev for his critique of Arrhenius'sdissociation theory.[56] After heated arguments, the majority of the academy chose Moissan by a margin of one vote.[57] The two nominations of Mendeleev in 1907 were again frustrated by the absolute opposition of Arrhenius.[56]
In 1907, Mendeleev died at the age of 72 inSaint Petersburg frominfluenza, just 6 days short of his 73rd birthday. His last words were to his physician: "Doctor, you have science, I have faith," which is possibly aJules Verne quote.[58]
Mendeleev made other important contributions to science. The Russian chemist and science historianLev Chugaev characterized him as
"a chemist of genius, first-class physicist, a fruitful researcher in the fields of hydrodynamics, meteorology, geology, certain branches of chemical technology (explosives, petroleum, and fuels, for example) and other disciplines adjacent to chemistry and physics, a thorough expert of chemical industry and industry in general, and an original thinker in the field of economy [...]"[59]
Mendeleev was one of the founders, in 1868, of theRussian Chemical Society [ru]. He worked on the theory and practice of protectionist trade and on agriculture.
In an attempt at a chemical conception of theaether, he put forward a hypothesis that there existed two inert chemical elements of lesser atomic weight thanhydrogen.[52] Of these two proposed elements, he thought the lighter to be an all-penetrating, all-pervasive gas, and the slightly heavier one to be a proposed element,coronium.
Mendeleev devoted much study and made important contributions to the determination of the nature of such indefinite compounds assolutions.
Mendeleev Medal
In another department ofphysical chemistry, he investigated the expansion of liquids with heat, and devised a formula similar toGay-Lussac's law of the uniformity of the expansion of gases, while in 1861 he anticipatedThomas Andrews' conception of thecritical temperature of gases by defining the absolute boiling-point of a substance as the temperature at which cohesion and heat of vaporization become equal to zero and the liquid changes to vapor, irrespective of the pressure and volume.[52]
Mendeleev studied the origins of petroleum; he concluded that hydrocarbons are abiogenic and form deep within the earth – seeAbiogenic petroleum origin.He wrote: "The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin."[61]
Activities beyond chemistry
Beginning in the 1870s, he published widely beyond chemistry, looking at aspects of Russian industry, and technical issues in agricultural productivity. He explored demographic issues, sponsored studies of theArctic Sea, tried to measure the efficacy of chemical fertilizers, and promoted the merchant navy.[62] He was especially active in improving the Russian petroleum industry, making detailed comparisons with the more advanced industry inPennsylvania.[63] Although not well-grounded in economics, he had observed industry throughout his European travels, and in 1891 he helped convince the Ministry of Finance to impose temporary tariffs with the aim of fostering Russianinfant industries.[64]
In 1889, he was elected as an honorary member of theManchester Literary and Philosophical Society.[65] The following year, 1890, he resigned his professorship at St. Petersburg University following a dispute with officials at the Ministry of Education over the treatment of university students.[66] In 1892 he was appointed director of Russia's Central Bureau of Weights and Measures, and led the way to standardize fundamental prototypes and measurement procedures. He set up an inspection system, and introduced the metric system to Russia.[67][68]
He debated against the scientific claims of spiritualism, arguing that metaphysical idealism was no more than ignorant superstition. He bemoaned the widespread acceptance of spiritualism in Russian culture, and its negative effects on the study of science.[69]
Vodka myth
A very popular Russian story credits Mendeleev with setting the 40% standard strength ofvodka. For example,Russian Standard vodka advertises: "In 1894, Dmitri Mendeleev, the greatest scientist in all Russia, received the decree to set the Imperial quality standard for Russian vodka and the 'Russian Standard' was born"[70] Others cite "the highest quality of Russian vodka approved by the royal government commission headed by Mendeleev in 1894".[71]
In fact, the 40% standard was already introduced by the Russian government in 1843, when Mendeleev was nine years old.[71] It is true that Mendeleev in 1892 became head of the Archive of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg, and evolved it into a government bureau the following year, but that institution was charged with standardising Russian trade weights and measuring instruments, not setting any production quality standards. Also, Mendeleev's 1865 doctoral dissertation was entitled "A Discourse on the combination of alcohol and water", but it only discussed medical-strength alcohol concentrations over 70%, and he never wrote anything about vodka.[71][72]
A number of places and objects are associated with the name and achievements of the scientist.
InSaint Petersburg his name was given toD. I. Mendeleev Institute for Metrology, the National Metrology Institute,[73] dealing with establishing and supporting national and worldwide standards for precise measurements. Next to it there is a monument to him that consists of his sitting statue and a depiction of his periodic table on the wall of the establishment.
Mendelevium, which is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Md (formerly Mv) and the atomic number 101, was named after Mendeleev. It is a metallic radioactive transuranic element in the actinide series, usually synthesized by bombarding einsteinium with alpha particles.
The mineral mendeleevite-Ce,Cs 6(Ce 22Ca 6)(Si 70O 175)(OH,F) 14(H 2O) 21, was named in Mendeleev's honor in 2010.[76] The related species mendeleevite-Nd,Cs 6[(Nd,REE) 23Ca 7](Si 70O 175)(OH,F) 19(H 2O) 16, was described in 2015.[77]
A large lunar impact craterMendeleev, that is located on the far side of the Moon, also bears the name of the scientist.
Менделеев Д. И.Об опытах над упругостью газов[dead link]. Сообщение Д. И. Менделеева в Императорском Русском техническом обществе — 21 янв. 1881 г. — СПб., 1881. — 22 с.
Менделеев, Д. (1994) [1906]. Савинкин, А.Е. (ed.).К познанию России(PDF). Российский военный сборник (in Russian). Vol. 7. Москва: ГА ВС. pp. 174–231.
^When the Princeton historian of science Michael Gordin reviewed this article as part of an analysis of the accuracy of Wikipedia for the 14 December 2005 issue ofNature, he cited as one of Wikipedia's errors that "They say Mendeleev is the 14th child. He is the 14th surviving child of 17 total. 14 is right out." However in a January 2006 article inThe New York Times, it was noted that in Gordin's own 2004 biography of Mendeleev, he also had the Russian chemist listed as the 17th child, and quoted Gordin's response to this as being: "That's curious. I believe that is a typographical error in my book. Mendeleyev was the final child, that is certain, and the number the reliable sources have is 13." Gordin's book specifically says that Mendeleev's mother bore her husband "seventeen children, of whom eight survived to young adulthood", with Mendeleev being the youngest.[24][25]
^Yuri Mandrika (2004). Tobolsk Governorate Vedomosti: Staff and Authors. Anthology of Tobolsk Journalism of the late XIX – early XX centuries in 2 Books // From the interview with Maria Mendeleeva, born Kornilieva, p. 351. Tumen: Mandr i Ka, 624 pages
^Yuri Mandrika (2004). Tobolsk Governorate Vedomosti: Staff and Authors.Anthology of Tobolsk Journalism of the late XIX – early XX centuries in 2 Books // The Kornilievs, Tobolsk Manufacturers article by Stepan Mameev, p. 314. – Tumen: Mandr i Ka, 624 pages
^"Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev comes from indigenous Russian people", p. 5 //Olga Tritogova-Mendeleeva (1947).Mendeleev and His Family. Moscow: Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 104 pages
^Anna Mendeleeva (1928).Mendeleev in Life. Moscow: M. and S. Sabashnikov Publishing House, 194 pages
^Loren R. Graham,Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History, Cambridge University Press (1993), p. 45
^Isaac Asimov,Asimov on Chemistry, Anchoor Books (1975), p. 101
^Leslie Alan Horvitz,Eureka!: Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World, John Wiley & Sons (2002), p. 45
^Lennard Bickel,The deadly element: the story of uranium, Stein and Day (1979), p. 22
^Hiebert, Ray Eldon; Hiebert, Roselyn (1975).Atomic Pioneers: From ancient Greece to the 19th century. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Division of Technical Information. p. 25.
^Gordin, Michael D. (2004).A Well-ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table. Basic Books. pp. 229–230.ISBN978-0465027750.Mendeleev seemed to have very few theological commitments. This was not for lack of exposure. His upbringing was actually heavily religious, and his mother – by far the dominating force in his youth – was exceptionally devout. One of his sisters even joined a fanatical religious sect for a time. Despite, or perhaps because of, this background, Mendeleev withheld comment on religious affairs for most of his life, reserving his few words for anti-clerical witticisms ... Mendeleev's son Ivan later vehemently denied claims that his father was devoutly Orthodox: "I have also heard the view of my father's 'church religiosity' – and I must reject this categorically. From his earliest years Father practically split from the church – and if he tolerated certain simple everyday rites, then only as an innocent national tradition, similar to Easter cakes, which he didn't consider worth fighting against." ... Mendeleev's opposition to traditional Orthodoxy was not due to either atheism or scientific materialism. Rather, he held to a form of romanticized deism.
^John B. Arden (1998). "Science, Theology and Consciousness", Praeger Frederick A. p. 59: "The initial expression of the commonly used chemical periodic table was reportedly envisioned in a dream. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev claimed to have had a dream in which he envisioned a table in which all the chemical elements were arranged according to their atomic weight."
^John Kotz, Paul Treichel, Gabriela Weaver (2005). "Chemistry and Chemical Reactivity," Cengage Learning. p. 333
^Gerard I. Nierenberg (1986). "The art of creative thinking", Simon & Schuster, p. 201:Dmitri Mendeleev's solution for the arrangement of the elements that came to him in a dream.
^Helen Palmer (1998). "Inner Knowing: Consciousness, Creativity, Insight, and Intuition". J.P. Tarcher/Putnam. p. 113: "The sewing machine, for instance, invented by Elias Howe, was developed from material appearing in a dream, as was Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table of elements"
^Simon S. Godfrey (2003).Dreams & Reality. Trafford Publishing. Chapter 2.: "The Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907), described a dream in which he saw the periodic table of elements in its complete form."ISBN1412011434
^Gordin, Michael D. (2015).Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.ISBN978-0226000299.
^Gribbin, J (2002).The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors. New York: Random House. p. 378.Bibcode:2003shst.book.....G.ISBN978-0812967883.
^Чугаев, Лев Александрович (1988) [1924].Dmitriĭ Ivanovich Mendeleev: Zhiznʹ i dei͡atelʹnostʹДмитрий Иванович Менделеев: жизнь и деятельность (in Russian) (reprint ed.). Leningrad: Nauchnoe khimiko-tekhnicheskoe izdatelʹstvo. Retrieved23 August 2024.Гениальный химик, первоклассный физик, плодотворный исследователь в области гидродинамики, метеорологии, геологии, в различных отделах химической технологии и других, сопредельных с химией и физикой дисциплинах, глубокий знаток химической промышленности и промышленности вообще, особенно русской, оригинальный мыслитель в области учения о народном хозяйстве, государственный ум, которому, к сожалению, не суждено было стать государственным человеком, но который видел и понимал задачи и будущность России лучше представителей нашей официальной власти.
^Mendeleev, D., 1877. "L'Origine du pétrole".Revue Scientifique, 2e Ser., VIII, pp. 409–416.
^Alexander Vucinich, "Mendeleev's Views on science and society,"ISIS 58:342–351.
^Francis Michael Stackenwalt, "Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev and the Emergence of the Modern Russian Petroleum Industry, 1863–1877."Ambix 45.2 (1998): 67–84.
^Vincent Barnett, "Catalysing Growth?: Mendeleev and the 1891 Tariff." in W. Samuels, ed.,A Research Annual: Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology (2004) Vol. 22 Part 1 pp. 123–144.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-4154(03)22004-6Online
^Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society FOURTH SERIES Eighth VOLUME 1894
^Nathan M. Brooks, "Mendeleev and metrology."Ambix 45.2 (1998): 116–128.
^Michael D. Gordin, "Measure of all the Russias: Metrology and governance in the Russian Empire."Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 4.4 (2003): 783–815.
^Don C. Rawson, "Mendeleev and the Scientific Claims of Spiritualism."Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 122.1 (1978): 1–8.
