"Building Blocks"

December 5, 2006

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907). Born in Siberia, the youngest of 14 children of an impoverished school teacher, Mendeleev was educated at the Teachers' College in St. Petersburg. After briefly serving as a gymnasium teacher, he went on to complete his graduate training at the University of St. Petersburg, after which he served as Professor of Chemistry at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute (1865-1866) and at the University of St. Petersburg (1866-1890), as well as Director of the Russian Central Board of Weights and Measures (1893-1907). Best known for his discovery in 1869 of the periodic law, which stated that the chemical and physical properties of the elements were a periodic function of their atomic weights, Mendeleev also did important work on molar volumes and isomorphism, the critical temperatures of organic liquids, the behavior of gases under extremely low pressures, the hydrate theory of solutions, and the geochemistry of petroleum.

Courtesy of Professor William Jensen, Oesper Chair of the History of Chemistry and Chemical Education, University of Cincinnati

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