Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist. He lived from 1834 to 1907. He is famous for creating the periodic table of elements. This table organizes all known chemicals.

Mendeleev’s table was special. He left spaces for elements not yet discovered. He guessed what these missing elements would be like. Later, three new elements were found — germanium, gallium, and scandium. They matched his guesses perfectly.

Because of his important work, a synthetic element was named mendelevium in his honor. His periodic table is still used today by scientists around the world.

Early life

Dmitri Mendeleev was born in a small village near Tobolsk in Siberia. His father was a school principal and teacher. His mother was from a family of merchants. Mendeleev was one of 17 children.

When Mendeleev was 13, his father could no longer see and could not work. A fire also destroyed his mother’s glass factory. Mendeleev’s mother took him to Moscow to try to go to Moscow University, but he could not join. They then went to Saint Petersburg, where he started at the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After finishing school, Mendeleev became ill with tuberculosis and went to the Crimean Peninsula to get better. He returned to Saint Petersburg in 1857, fully recovered.

Mendeleev later worked in Heidelberg and wrote a textbook called Organic Chemistry. He married Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva in 1862 and became a teacher at the Saint Petersburg Technological Institute and Saint Petersburg State University. By 1871, he had helped make Saint Petersburg famous for chemistry research.

Periodic table

See also: History of the periodic table

In the 1860s, scientists were finding new elements fast. Dmitri Mendeleev made the first clear periodic table. In 1869, he told other scientists in Russia about his idea. He showed that when elements are arranged by their weight, their properties repeat in a pattern.

Mendeleev’s table was special because he left spaces for elements not yet discovered. He guessed what these new elements would be like. Later, three new elements—germanium, gallium, and scandium—were found, and they matched his guesses. He also helped fix the properties of some known elements, like uranium, so they fit better with his system.

Later life

Dmitri Mendeleev met Anna Ivanovna Popova in 1876 and married her in 1882 after divorcing his first wife. This caused some problems because of church rules.

He left Saint Petersburg University in 1890 and became the director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures until he passed away.

Mendeleev studied petroleum and helped start Russia’s first oil refinery. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times near the end of his life.

Death

In 1907, Dmitri Mendeleev passed away at the age of 72 in Saint Petersburg from influenza. He was buried at Literatorskie Mostki cemetery. Mendeleev was a great scientist who made many important discoveries. He helped start the Russian Chemical Society in 1868 and studied chemistry, physics, and ideas about nature. He also helped bring the metric system to the Russian Empire and worked on new materials for the Russian Navy.

Activities beyond chemistry

Dmitri Mendeleev used his knowledge in many areas that were not chemistry. He studied Russian industry and farming. He helped protect the country's growing businesses. He also supported the Russian navy.

He worked to improve how Russia measured things. He introduced the metric system. He created better rules for weights and measures.

There is a popular story in Russia that Mendeleev set the strength of vodka at 40%, but this is not true. The strength was set by the government many years before he was born. Mendeleev worked with measurements, but his job was about trade weights and instruments, not about making rules for alcohol products.

Commemoration

Dmitri Mendeleev's important work has been honored in many ways.

In Saint Petersburg, a famous institute for measurements is named after him, D. I. Mendeleev Institute for Metrology, and there is a statue of him nearby. At Saint Petersburg State University, there is a museum in his old apartment, and a street is named after him too, Mendeleevskaya liniya. In Moscow, a university for chemical technology carries his name, the D. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia.

Scientists named a special man-made element after him, Mendelevium, and even a rare mineral found in nature has his name in it. There is also a big crater on the far side of the Moon called Mendeleev.

The Russian Academy of Sciences gives out a special award called the Mendeleev Golden Medal, and in 2016, Google celebrated his birthday with a special drawing on its homepage, a Google doodle.

Works

Dmitri Mendeleev wrote many important books and articles about chemistry and science. Some of his well-known works include Периодический закон (DjVu), Растворы (DjVu), and Периодический закон. Дополнительные материалы (DjVu). He also wrote about topics like the expansion of liquids and gases. He contributed over 54 articles to an encyclopedia, sharing his knowledge with many people.