Learn everything about Dmitri Mendeleev, father of the Periodic Table

Periodic elements, one of the most terrible views for chemistry students, is not only a tool we use occasionally. It can be thought of as the backbone of modern chemistry, a kind of GPS that allows us to sail sail in a large world full of strange elements.

However, this “component menu of the universe, which is hanging from the wall with every chemical laboratory in the world, knows that very few human creators are Russian Dmitri Mendeleev. The genius was not limited to listing elements, but in coding basic (periodic) natural standards, by revealing the basic architecture of the matter. At a time when the structure of the atom is unknown.

The table he created in 1869 is the same as we use, including some elements provided by him. The only real difference is that the Mendeleev table increases the atomic weight by ordering elements, and the current table is ordered by increasing the number of atoms. This concept was discovered by Henry Moseley six years after Mendeleev’s death in 1913.

Periodic Tragedies: Mendeleev’s childhood and youth

Dmitri Mendeleev, who was born in Siberia in 1834, had several difficulties and family drama in Siberia in 1834. The smallest of 13 or 14 children, his family encountered extreme poverty. First, his father Ivan Kör and his mother could not work, and his mother Maria reopened the family’s glass factory to support them. However, Dmitri lost his father at the age of 13, and then the factory was destroyed by a fire.

Despite financial limitations, Maria recognized her son’s academic potential and gave priority to his education. He traveled to Moscow for more than two thousand kilometers, Dmitri and his two brothers rejected Mendeleev of Siberian origin, but the University of Moscovite. The family later went to St. Petersburg, where he joined the main pedagogical institute, but soon he met two more tragedies: Maria and his sister died of tuberculosis and were also ill.

In 1855, at the age of 21, Mendeleev went to Crimea (today -day Ukraine), waiting to save his health in a warmer climate. There he became a teacher at the Simferopol School, but a week later the crime war began and the school was closed. Chemist who was transferred to Odessa returned to St. Petersburg and finally devoted two years to doctoral research on interactions between alcohols and water

Discovery of the periodic table of the elements

In 1869, Mendeleev prepared his second textbook as a professor of general chemistry at the university. “So I started to search and write elements with atomic weights and typical features, similar elements and atomic weights, and this soon convinced me. The characteristics of the elements are periodic dependence on atomic weights“He says in the principles of chemistry.

Inspired by the game of patience, Mendeleev organized the items in columns and rows, as in a modern e -of course. He ordered them with atomic mass and restarted the columns to groups with similar characteristics in horizontal lines. Although groups such as alkaline metals and halogens are perfectly aligned, others, such as Lantanids (rare lands), did not fit the model.

These inconsistencies to solve the Mendeleev set atomic weights. Reduced some formulas such as berillium oxide, which has been placed together with magnesium, not aluminum. This created an innovative approach that gives priority to chemical properties rather than only experimental data that allowed to predict future discoveries.

To integrate science, innovations and practical life

Mendeleev was not limited to the periodic picture that distinguishes his research into industrial and agricultural practices. He was the first to propose fuel transport pipelines, built the first Russian refiner and tested fertilizers in his own farm. He traveled by train to the peasants to spread science to the peasants, presented practical advice such as fertilization techniques, and showed the commitment to combining science and practical solutions.

The researcher, who was affected by the North Pole, designed the ice breaker and wrote 40 articles on navigation. He developed a smoke -free gunpowder for the Russian navy and,, In 1887, he climbed alone in a balloon without any experience before.. His courage, expertise and flexibility increased unimaginable progress in various fields: introduced the metric system in Russia and examined critical gases and chemical solutions.

Mendeleev, a traveler, photographer and passionate collector, finally created a personal solution to help him on his trips: he became a suitcase manufacturer. He founded travel pieces made with a special glue he discovered while investigating unique and sticky substances.

Feeling threatening by atomic physics

As in many scientists who were revolutionary in the fields of discovery, but when new ideas “threatened their theories” conservative or skeptical, Mendeleev revolutionized their periodic paintings in chemistry, but was resistant to new concepts such as electrolytes, electrons and radioactivity. It was difficult to think that atoms could be divided and transformed in a paradigm before modern physics.

With a target irony, element 101, called Mendelévio in honor, is quite radioactive. Since it is beyond the uranium in the periodic table, it is a transuent element and naturally does not occur on earth. In 1955, a very short half -life created by Albert Ghiorso’s scientists led by Albert Ghiorso at the University of Berkeley. Mendelévio is the result of the bombing of Einthhenian.

Mendeleev died of flu just before 73 years in 1907. He was buried next to his mother at the Volkova Cemetery in St. Petersburg. As a praise of his scientific heritage, there was a funeral ceremony with the honor of the state, where the students carried a periodic table. The last words he said to the doctor were as follows: “Doctor, you have science, I have faith”A possible quote from science fiction writer Júlio Verne.

Was it fascinated by the mind behind the periodic table? Share Mendeleev’s story with your friends and followers on social networks. To learn more about this: Is there a limit of the elements of the periodic table?