Abstract
DMITRI IVANOWITSCH MENDELÉFF, who was born on February 7, 1834 (N.S.) and was for many years professor of chemistry at Leningrad, is chiefly remembered for the first clear and satisfactory enunciation of the Periodic Law, the discovery having been made in the latter part of the year 1868 and announced in 1869. He found that when the chemical elements are set out in an unbroken row in the order of the atomic weights, certain breaks become apparent, and the whole range divides itself into groups of related elements. This result, expressed in the law that “the properties of the elements are in periodic dependence on the atomic weights” is the basis of the Periodic System, or Periodic Table. In arriving at this conclusion, Mendeléeff was in-fluenced mainly by the previous attempts at classification made by Dumas, Lenssen, Petten-kofer and Kremers, especially the first two, those of Newlands in 1863, and of others, being unknown to him. A similar result had been achieved by Lothar Meyer in 1868, but was not published.
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Mendeléeff (1834–1907) and the Periodic Law. Nature 133, 161 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133161a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133161a0