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p. 585. The Russian genius – Mendeleevlocked

  • Eric Scerri

Abstract

‘The Russian Genius: Medeleev’ covers the life and work of Dmitri Mendeleev. Mendeleev was rejected by Moscow University on race grounds, so studied at St Petersburg before moving to Germany. Mendeleev understood the abstract form of elements, not just their existence as isolated substances. He also rejected the notion of the unity of matter. In a single day in 1869, he sketched out an entire periodic table. This table made many accurate predictions, but also made some mistakes. Inert gases, when first isolated in 1894, struggled to fit into Mendeleev's periodic table, but in 1900 the two were reconciled.

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