Dmitri Mendeleev

About this figure

Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) was a Russian chemist best known for formulating the periodic law and constructing an early, influential version of the periodic table of elements. While preparing a chemistry textbook, Principles of Chemistry, published in two volumes beginning in 1869, Mendeleev noticed that when elements were arranged by increasing atomic weight, their chemical properties recurred at regular intervals. He arranged the elements into a table reflecting this pattern and, notably, left gaps for elements he predicted must exist but had not yet been discovered, forecasting the approximate atomic weights and properties of elements later identified as gallium, scandium, and germanium.

The accuracy of these predictions, confirmed within his lifetime, did much to establish the periodic table as a serious scientific tool rather than a curiosity of classification. Mendeleev spent most of his career as a professor at St. Petersburg University, where Principles of Chemistry went through multiple editions and was translated into several languages. He also studied the physical chemistry of solutions, examined the properties of natural gas and petroleum, and advised the Russian government on industrial and economic matters, including tariff policy.

Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize but never received it. He died in St. Petersburg in 1907; the element mendelevium, first synthesized in 1955, was named in his honor.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.