Mendeleev, Dmitri Ivanovich

Mendeleev, Dmitri Ivanovich

(mĕndəlā`əf, Rus. dəmē`trē ēvä`nəvĭch myĭndyĭlyā`əf), 1834–1907, Russian chemist. He is famous for his formulation (1869) of the periodic lawperiodic law,
statement of a periodic recurrence of chemical and physical properties of the elements when the elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic number.
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 and the invention of the periodic tableperiodic table,
chart of the elements arranged according to the periodic law discovered by Dmitri I. Mendeleev and revised by Henry G. J. Moseley. In the periodic table the elements are arranged in columns and rows according to increasing atomic number (see the table entitled
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, a classification of the elements; with Lothar MeyerMeyer, Julius Lothar,
1830–95, German chemist. He taught at Breslau, Karlsruhe, and Tübingen (from 1876) and is known especially for his work in the development of the periodic law, for which, with Mendeleev, he received the Davy medal in 1882.
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, who had independently reached similar conclusions, he was awarded the Davy medal in 1882. From his remarkable table Mendeleev predicted the properties of elements then unknown; three of these (gallium, scandium, and germanium) were later discovered. He studied also the nature of solutions and the expansion of liquids. An outstanding teacher, he was professor at the Univ. of St. Petersburg (1868–90). He directed the bureau of weights and measures from 1893 and served as government adviser on the development of the petroleum industry. His Principles of Chemistry (2 vol., 1868–71; tr. 1905) was long a standard text. Various transliterations of his surname are common, among them Mendeleyev and Mendelejeff.

Bibliography

See biography by P. Kelman and A. H. Stone (1970); I. V. Petryanov and D. N. Trifonov, Elementary Order: Mendeleev's Periodic System (1985).