Dmitri Mendeleev

RUSSIAN SCIENTIST

DMitri Mendeleev, Russian

in full Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (born January 27 (February 8,
New Style), 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russian Empiredied January 20
(February 2), 1907, St. Petersburg, Russia), Russian chemist who
developed the periodic classification of the elements. Mendeleev found
that, when all the known chemical elements were arranged in order of
increasing atomic weight, the resulting table displayed a recurring
pattern, or periodicity, of properties within groups of elements. In his
version of the periodic table of 1871, he left gaps in places where he
believed unknown elements would find their place. He even predicted
the likely properties of three of the potential elements. The subsequent
proof of many of his predictions within his lifetime brought fame to
Mendeleev as the founder of the periodic law.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Mendeleev was born in the small Siberian town of Tobolsk as the last of
14 surviving children (or 13, depending on the source) of Ivan

Pavlovich Mendeleev, a teacher at the local gymnasium, and Mariya

Dmitriyevna Kornileva. Dmitris father became blind in the year of
Dmitris birth and died in 1847. To support the family, his mother
turned to operating a small glass factory owned by her family in a
nearby town. The factory burned down in December 1848, and Dmitris
mother took him to St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the
Main Pedagogical Institute. His mother died soon after, and Mendeleev
graduated
in
1855.
He
got
his
first
teaching
position
at Simferopol in Crimea. He stayed there only two months and, after a
short time at the lyceum of Odessa, decided to go back to St.
Petersburg to continue his education. He received a masters degree in
1856 and began to conduct research in organic chemistry. Financed by
a government fellowship, he went to study abroad for two years at
the University of Heidelberg. Instead of working closely with the
prominent chemists of the university, including Robert Bunsen, Emil
Erlenmeyer, and August Kekul, he set up a laboratory in his own
apartment. In September 1860 he attended the International
Chemistry Congress inKarlsruhe, convened to discuss such crucial
issues as atomic weights, chemical symbols, andchemical formulas.
There he met and established contacts with many of Europes leading
chemists. In later years Mendeleev would especially remember a paper
circulated by the Italian chemistStanislao Cannizzaro that clarified the
notion of atomic weights.
In 1861 Mendeleev returned to St. Petersburg, where he obtained a
professorship at the Technological Institute in 1864. After the defense
of his doctoral dissertation in 1865 he was appointed professor of
chemical technology at the University of St. Petersburg (now St.
Petersburg State University). He became professor of general
chemistry in 1867 and continued to teach there until 1890.
FORMULATION OF THE PERIODIC LAW
As he began to teach inorganic chemistry, Mendeleev could not find a
textbook that met his needs. Since he had already published a
textbook on organic chemistry in 1861 that had been awarded the
prestigious Demidov Prize, he set out to write another one. The result
was Osnovy khimii (186871;The Principles of Chemistry), which
became a classic, running through many editions and many
translations. When Mendeleev began to compose the chapter on
the halogen elements (chlorineand its analogs) at the end of the first
volume, he compared the properties of this group of elements to those
of the group of alkali metals such as sodium. Within these two groups
of dissimilar elements, he discovered similarities in the progression of
atomic weights, and he wondered if other groups of elements exhibited
similar properties. After studying the alkaline earths, Mendeleev

established that the order of atomic weights could be used not only to
arrange the elements within each group but also to arrange the groups
themselves. Thus, in his effort to make sense of the extensive
knowledge that already existed of the chemical and physical properties
of the chemical elements and their compounds, Mendeleev discovered
the periodic law.

The periodic table from Dmitri Mendeleevs Osnovy khimii (1869;

His newly formulated law was announced before the Russian Chemical
Society in March 1869 with the statement elements arranged
according to the value of their atomic weights present a clear
periodicity of properties. Mendeleevs law allowed him to build up a
systematic table of all the 70 elements then known. He had such faith
in the validity of the periodic law that he proposed changes to the
generally accepted values for the atomic weight of a few elements and
predicted the locations within the table of unknown elements together
with their properties. At first the periodic system did not raise interest
among chemists. However, with the discovery of the predicted
elements,
notably gallium in
1875, scandium in
1879,
and germanium in 1886, it began to win wide acceptance. Gradually
the periodic law and table became the framework for a great part of
chemical theory. By the time Mendeleev died in 1907, he enjoyed
international recognition and had received distinctions and awards
from many countries.
OTHER SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS
Since Mendeleev is best known today as the discoverer of the periodic
law, his chemical career is often viewed as a long process of

maturation of his main discovery. Indeed, in the three decades

following his discovery, Mendeleev himself offered many recollections
suggesting that there had been a remarkable continuity in his career,
from his early dissertations on isomorphism and specific volumes (for
graduation and his masters degree), which involved the study of the
relations between various properties of chemical substances, to the
periodic law itself. In this account, Mendeleev mentioned the Karlsruhe
congress as the major event that led him to the discovery of the
relations between atomic weights and chemical properties.
However, this retrospective impression of a continuous research
program is misleading, since one striking feature of Mendeleevs long
career is the diversity of his activities. First, in the field of
chemical science, Mendeleev made various contributions. In the field
of physical chemistry, for instance, he conducted a broad research
program throughout his career that focused on gases and liquids. In
1860, while working in Heidelberg, he defined the absolute point of
ebullition (the point at which a gas in a container will condense to a
liquid solely by the application of pressure). In 1864 he formulated a
theory (subsequently discredited) that solutions are chemical
combinations in fixed proportions. In 1871, as he published the final
volume of the first edition of his Principles of Chemistry, he was
investigating the elasticity of gases and gave a formula for their
deviation fromBoyles law (now also known as the Boyle-Mariotte law,
the principle that the volume of a gas varies inversely with its
pressure). In the 1880s he studied the thermal expansion of liquids.
A second major feature of Mendeleevs scientific work is his theoretical
inclinations. From the beginning of his career, he continually sought to
shape a broad theoretical scheme in the tradition of natural philosophy.
This effort can be seen in his early adoption of the type theory of the
French chemist Charles Gerhardt and in his rejection of electrochemical
dualism as suggested by the great Swedish chemist Jns Jacob
Berzelius. All his efforts were not equally successful. He based his 1861
organic chemistry textbook on a theory of limits (that the percentage
of oxygen, hydrogen, andnitrogen could not exceed certain amounts in
combination with carbon), and he defended this theory against the
more popular structural theory of his countryman Aleksandr Butlerov.
Because of his antipathy to electrochemistry, he later opposed the
Swedish chemist Svante Arrheniuss ionic theory of solutions. Before
and during Mendeleevs time, many attempts at classifying the
elements were based on the hypothesis of the English chemist William
Prout that all elements derived from a unique primary matter.
Mendeleev insisted that elements were true individuals, and he fought
against those who, like the British scientist William Crookes, used his
periodic system in support of Prouts hypothesis. With the discovery

of electrons and radioactivity in the 1890s, Mendeleev perceived a

threat to his theory of the individuality of elements. In Popytka
khimicheskogo ponimania mirovogo efira (1902; An Attempt Towards a
Chemical Conception of the Ether), he explained these phenomena as
movements of ether around heavy atoms, and he tried to
classifyether as a chemical element above the group of inert gases
(or noble gases). This bold (and ultimately discredited) hypothesis was
part of Mendeleevs project of extending Newtons mechanics to
chemistry in an attempt to unify the natural sciences.
ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE THE LABORATORY
Mendeleev carried on many other activities outside academic research
and teaching. He was one of the founders of the Russian Chemical
Society (now the Mendeleev Russian Chemical Society) in 1868 and
published most of his later papers in its journal. He was
a prolific thinker and writer. His published works include 400 books and
articles, and numerous unpublished manuscripts are kept to this day in
the Dmitri Mendeleev Museum and Archives at St. Petersburg State
University. In addition, in order to earn money he started writing
articles on popular science and technology for journals and
encyclopaedias as early as 1859. His interest in spreading scientific
and technological knowledge was such that he continued popular
science writing until the end of his career, taking part in the project of
the Brockhaus Enzyklopdie and launching a series of publications
entitledBiblioteka promyshlennykh znany (Library of Industrial
Knowledge) in the 1890s. Another interest, that of developing the
agricultural and industrial resources of Russia, began to occupy
Mendeleev in the 1860s and grew to become one of his major
preoccupations. He wrote projects to develop a coalindustry in
the Donets Basin, and he traveled to both Baku in Azerbaijan (then part
of the Russian Empire) and to Pennsylvania in the United States in
order to learn more about the petroleumindustry. All told, he may have
devoted more time to questions of national economy than to pure
chemistry.
Like his lifelong commitment to the industrial development of Russia,
Mendeleevs philosophical views may have been rooted in his family
background in Siberia. However, it seems he developed
ametaphysics of his own through his daily experience. In the 1870s the
visit of a famous medium to St. Petersburg drew him to publish a
number of harsh criticisms of the apostles of spiritualism. In March
1890, Mendeleev had to resign from his chair at the university
following his support of protesting students, and he started a second
career. He first acted as a government consultant until he was
appointed director of the Central Bureau of Weights and Measures,

created in 1893. There he made significant contributions to metrology.

Refusing to content himself solely with the managerial aspect of his
position (which involved the renewal of the prototypes of length and
weight and the determination of standards), he purchased expensive
precision instruments, enlarged the team of the bureau, and conducted
extensive research on metrology. After a few years he published an
independent journal of metrology. Thus, Mendeleev was able to
combine his lifetime interests in science and industry and to achieve
one of his main goals: integrating Russia into the Western world.

Sir William Ramsay

BRITISH CHEMIST

Sir
William
Ramsay, (born Oct. 2, 1852, Glasgow, Scot.died July 23, 1916, High
Wycombe,Buckinghamshire, Eng.), British physical chemist who
discovered four gases (neon, argon, krypton, xenon) and showed that
they (with helium and radon) formed an entire family of new elements,
the noble gases. He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in
recognition of this achievement.
EDUCATION
Ramsay, the only child of a civil engineer, decided at an early age that
he would become a chemist. He studied at the University of
Glasgow in Scotland (186670); during his final 18 months there he

pursued additional studies in the laboratory of the city analyst, Robert

Tatlock. In October 1870 he left Glasgow without taking a degree,
intending to become a pupil of the German analytical chemist Robert
Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, but he abandoned
this plan. Six months later, Ramsay became a doctoral student under
the German organic chemist Rudolf Fittig at the University of
Tbingen in Germany, where he received a doctorate in 1872.
EARLY RESEARCH
After graduating from Tbingen, Ramsay returned to Glasgow to work
at Anderson College (187274) and then at the University of Glasgow
(187480). During this period, Ramsays research focused on
alkaloids (complex chemical compounds derived from plants). He
studied their physiological action and established their structural
relationship
to pyridine,
a
nitrogen-containing compound closely
resembling benzene. In 1879 he turned to physical chemistry to study
the molecular volumes of elements at their boiling points. Following his
appointment to the chair of chemistry at University College, Bristol
(188087; he became principal of the college in 1881), he continued
this research with the British chemist Sydney Young; they published
more than 30 papers on the physical characteristics of liquids and
vapours. This work helped Ramsay to develop the technical and
manipulative skills that later formed the hallmark of his work on the
noble gases. In 1887 Ramsay became professor of general chemistry
at University College London, where he remained until his retirement in
1913. For several years he continued to work on projects related to the
properties of liquids and vapours, and in 1893 he and chemist John
Shields verified Hungarian physicist Roland Etvss law for the
constancy of the rate of change of molecular surface energy with
temperature. During the following year, Ramsay began the research
that was eventually to make him the most famous chemist in Britain
the discovery of the noble gases.
DISCOVERY OF NOBLE GASES
The British physicist John William Strutt (better known as Lord
Rayleigh) showed in 1892 that the atomic weight of nitrogen found in
chemical compounds was lower than that of nitrogen found in the
atmosphere. He ascribed this discrepancy to a light gas included in
chemical compounds of nitrogen, while Ramsay suspected a hitherto
undiscovered heavy gas in atmospheric nitrogen. Using two different
methods to remove all known gases from air, Ramsay and Rayleigh
were able to announce in 1894 that they had found a monatomic,

chemically inert gaseous element that constituted nearly 1 percent of

the atmosphere; they named it argon. The following year, Ramsay
liberated another inert gas from a mineral called cleveite; this proved
to be helium, previously known only in the solar spectrum. In his
book The Gases of the Atmosphere (1896), Ramsay showed that the
positions of helium and argon in the periodic table of elements
indicated that at least three more noble gases might exist. In 1898 he
and the British chemist Morris W. Travers isolated these elements
called neon, krypton, and xenonfrom air brought to a liquid state at
low temperature and high pressure. Working with the British
chemist Frederick Soddy in 1903, Ramsay demonstrated that helium
(together with a gaseous emanation called radon) is continually
produced during the radioactive decay of radium, a discovery of crucial
importance to the modern understanding of nuclear reactions. In 1910,
using tiny samples of radon, Ramsay proved that it was a sixth noble
gas, and he provided further evidence that it was formed by the
emission of a helium nucleus from radium. This research demonstrated
the high degree of experimental skill that Ramsay had developed, but
it also marked his last notable scientific contribution. Intrigued by the
new science of radiochemistry, he made many unsuccessful attempts
to further explore the phenomenon.
LATER YEARS
Ramsay had many interests, including languages, music, and travel.
He was strongly supportive of science education, a concern that grew
out of his experiences at Bristol, where he had been deeply involved in
the campaign to obtain government funding for the university colleges.
He was the first to write textbooks based on the periodic classification
of elements: A System of Inorganic Chemistryand Elementary
Systematic Chemistry for the Use of Schools and Colleges (both 1891).
After the turn of the 20th century, and especially following the award of
the Nobel Prize, Ramsays time was increasingly taken up by external
commitments. His fame was such that he was in demand as a
consultant to industry and as an expert witness in legal cases. He
expanded his range of interests to include the business world,
becoming a director of some (ultimately short-lived) chemical
companies. He also wrote semipopular magazine articles on science,
some of which were published in his Essays Biographical and
Chemical (1908). The recipient of many awards and honours, Ramsay
was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1888 and knighted in 1902;

and he served as president of the Chemical Society (190709) and the

British Association for the Advancement of Science (1911). Following
his retirement, he moved to Buckinghamshire and continued to work in
a private laboratory at his home. Upon the outbreak of war in 1914, he
became involved in efforts to secure the participation of scientific
experts in the creation of government science policy. He continued to
write on war-related matters until his death from cancer.