Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev ({{lang-ru|???????? ????????? ??????????}} {{Audio|ru-Dmitri_Mendeleev.ogg|listen}}) ({{OldStyleDate|8 February|1834|27 January}} in Tobolsk – {{OldStyleDate|2 February|1907|20 January}} in Saint Petersburg), was a Russian chemist. He is renowned for being one of the two scientists who created the first version of the periodic table of elements. Unlike other contributors to the table, Mendeleyev managed to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered. In several cases he even ventured to question the accuracy of the accepted atomic weights, arguing that they did not correspond to those predicted by the Periodic Law, and here too subsequent research proved him correct.

Biography

Mendeleyev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, the youngest of fourteen children of Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleyev and Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva (nee Kornilieva). At the age of fourteen, after the death of his father, Mendeleyev attended the Gymnasium in Tobolsk.

Related Topics:
Tobolsk - Siberia - Gymnasium

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In 1849, the now poor family Mendeleyev relocated to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After graduating, an illness that was diagnosed as tuberculosis caused him to move to the Crimean Peninsula near the Black Sea in 1855, where he became chief science master of the local gymnasium. He returned with fully restored health to St. Petersburg in 1856.

Related Topics:
1849 - St. Petersburg - Main Pedagogical Institute - 1850 - Tuberculosis - Crimean Peninsula - Black Sea - 1855 - 1856

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Between 1859 and 1861 he worked on the density of gases in Paris, and the workings of the spectroscope with Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in Heidelberg. In 1863, after returning to Russia, he became Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and the University of St. Petersburg. In the same year, he married Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva; the marriage ended in divorce. He later married Anna Ivanovna Popova; their daughter Lyubov eventually became the wife of the famous Russian poet Alexander Blok.

Related Topics:
1859 - 1861 - Paris - Spectroscope - Gustav Robert Kirchhoff - Heidelberg - 1863 - University of St. Petersburg - Alexander Blok

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Though Mendeleyev was widely honored by scientific organizations all over Europe, including the Copley Medal from the Royal Society of London, his political activities worried the Russian government, which led to his resignation from St. Petersburg University on August 17, 1890. In 1893, he was appointed Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Related Topics:
Europe - Copley Medal - Royal Society - London - August 17 - 1890 - 1893

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In his later years, he worked out and patented the standard for the classical Russian vodka. Perhaps more importantly, he investigated the composition and fields of oil and helped to found the first oil refinery in Russia. He died in St. Petersburg, Russia from influenza. Element number 101, the radioactive mendelevium, is named after him.

Related Topics:
Vodka - Oil refinery - Russia - St. Petersburg, Russia - Influenza - Mendelevium

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