 |
Dimitrii Mendeleev was born in 1834, and died in 1907. Chemists Dmitrii I. Mendeleev, a Russian, and German Lothar Meyer were working independently in 1868 and 1869 on the arrangement of elements into seven columns, corresponding to various chemical and physical properties. Their tables were similar - they acknowledged each other's work. Meyer's table was an accurate (for the time) accounting of the known facts about each element, such as melting point and atomic volume. The table was published in 1870 with a description of the periodic law, in Liebig's Annalen. A year earlier however, the 35 year old Mendeleev presented a much bolder and scientifically useful table. His paper, On the Relation of the Properties to the Atomic Weights of the Elements, was enthusiastically received by the Russian Chemical Society. In it, the periodic relationship between chemical groups, that is, elements with a similar stoichiometry of reaction, is clearly illustrated. In a scientific triumph, gaps in the table accurately predicted undiscovered elements. |
To return to where you were, please use the BACK button of your browser.