Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements

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Strunz, F. (1993). Preconscious mental activity and scientific problem-solving: A critique of the KeKulé dream controversy, Dreaming, 3, pp. 281-294. On 4 April 1862, he became engaged to Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva, and they married on 27 April 1862 at Nikolaev Engineering Institute's church in Saint Petersburg (where he taught). [27] We must expect the discovery of many yet unknown elements – for example, two elements, analogous to aluminium and silicon, whose atomic weights would be between 65 and 75. Nye, Mary Jo (2016). "Speaking in Tongues: Science's centuries-long hunt for a common language". Distillations. 2 (1): 40–43 . Retrieved 22 March 2018. This is a very good book. It not only made me understand the shift from alchemy to chemistry, the search for elements and the more or less bizarre people involved in both but also what is the trouble with most popularized accounts that claim to be about the history of science. Strathern is both a historian and a scientist. Most other authors are only half historians and half scientists, at least when they set out to write their books which turn out to be more or less sloppy products.

Rao, C N R; Rao, Indumati (2015). Lives and Times of Great Pioneers in Chemistry: (Lavoisier to Sanger). World Scientific. p.119. ISBN 978-9814689076. In fact, the 40% standard was already introduced by the Russian government in 1843, when Mendeleev was nine years old. [66] It is true that Mendeleev in 1892 became head of the Archive of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg, and evolved it into a government bureau the following year, but that institution was charged with standardising Russian trade weights and measuring instruments, not setting any production quality standards. Also, Mendeleev's 1865 doctoral dissertation was entitled "A Discourse on the combination of alcohol and water", but it only discussed medical-strength alcohol concentrations over 70%, and he never wrote anything about vodka. [66] [67] Commemoration Portrait of Mendeleev by Ilya Repin, 1885

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Heilbron, John L. (2003). The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-974376-6.

This is a history of chemistry, loosely organized around Mendeleyev's discovery that the elements can be understood as a periodic table. After a brief, tantalizing look at Mendeleyev and the challenge he faced, the author leaps off into a scatter-shot history of chemistry, where he spends the bulk of his text. I would have much preferred an actual focus on Mendeleyev, who was a fascinating person. Strathern's chemical history is uneven. Some parts are thorough and interesting - particularly the Arabs and Paracelsus. However, it is unclear why Strathern chooses to linger over some personalities, while he zooms through dozens of others so rapidly that their names and achievements blur together. He debated against the scientific claims of spiritualism, arguing that metaphysical idealism was no more than ignorant superstition. He bemoaned the widespread acceptance of spiritualism in Russian culture, and its negative effects on the study of science. [64] Vodka myth Pfennig, Brian W. (2015). Principles of Inorganic Chemistry. Wiley. p.109. ISBN 978-1118859025 . Retrieved 4 March 2016. Saint-PetersburgState University. "Museum-Archives n.a. Dmitry Mendeleev – Museums – Culture and Sport – University – Saint-Petersburg state university". Eng.spbu.ru. Archived from the original on 15 March 2010 . Retrieved 19 August 2012.In 1863, there were 56 known elements with a new element being discovered at a rate of approximately one per year. Other scientists had previously identified periodicity of elements. John Newlands described a Law of Octaves, noting their periodicity according to relative atomic weight in 1864, publishing it in 1865. His proposal identified the potential for new elements such as germanium. The concept was criticized, and his innovation was not recognized by the Society of Chemists until 1887. Another person to propose a periodic table was Lothar Meyer, who published a paper in 1864 describing 28 elements classified by their valence, but with no predictions of new elements. In Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements ( public library), novelist Paul Strathern reconstructs the landmark moment from the scientist’s letters and diaries, and reimagines it with a dose of satisfying literary flourishing: Trailblazing chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (February 8, 1834–February 2, 1907) came to scientific greatness via an unlikely path, overcoming towering odds to create the periodic table foundational to our understanding of chemistry. Born in Siberia as one of anywhere between 11 and 17 children — biographical accounts differ, as infant mortality rate in the era was devastatingly high — he was immersed in tragedy from an early age. His father was a professor of fine arts, philosophy, and politics, but grew blind and lost his teaching position. His mother became the sole breadwinner, working at a glass factory. When Dmitri was thirteen, his father died. Two years later, a fire destroyed the glass factory. Fortunately [Mendeleyev's] wife proved an imaginative and resourceful woman. She wisely chose to spend her time on the estate at Tver, except when her husband arrived there from St Petersburg, when she and the children would depart from the Mendeleyev town residence. In this way the marriage managed to survive, without the cohabitation which is the ruin of so many relationships."

Mendeleev studied petroleum origin and concluded hydrocarbons are abiogenic and form deep within the earth – see Abiogenic petroleum origin. Mendeleyev’s Dream sounds like a dense book, but Strathern keeps things light by writing about the many outrageous personalities who studied alchemy and chemistry over the years. One of the most entertaining chapters is about Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and alchemist from the 1500s. Paracelsus made important contributions to toxicology and medicine. He was also a quirky character with a flair for the dramatic. During one of his lectures, Strathern writes, “Paracelsus opened by announcing that he would now reveal the greatest secret in medical science. Whereupon he dramatically uncovered a pan of excrement.” (He’s a man after my own heart.) Though Mendeleev was widely honored by scientific organizations all over Europe, including (in 1882) the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of London (which later also awarded him the Copley Medal in 1905), [52] he resigned from Saint Petersburg University on 17 August 1890. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1892, [1] and in 1893 he was appointed director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures, a post which he occupied until his death. [52] Maria Kornilieva came from a well-known family of Tobolsk merchants, founders of the first Siberian printing house who traced their ancestry to Yakov Korniliev, a 17th-century posad man turned a wealthy merchant. [9] [10] In 1889, a local librarian published an article in the Tobolsk newspaper where he claimed that Yakov was a baptized Teleut, an ethnic minority known as "white Kalmyks" at the time. [11] Since no sources were provided and no documented facts of Yakov's life were ever revealed, biographers generally dismiss it as a myth. [12] [13] In 1908, shortly after Mendeleev's death, one of his nieces published Family Chronicles. Memories about D. I. Mendeleev where she voiced "a family legend" about Maria's grandfather who married "a Kyrgyz or Tatar beauty whom he loved so much that when she died, he also died from grief". [14] This, however, contradicts the documented family chronicles, and neither of those legends is supported by Mendeleev's autobiography, his daughter's or his wife's memoirs. [4] [15] [16] Yet some Western scholars still refer to Mendeleev's supposed "Mongol", "Tatar", " Tartarian" or simply "Asian" ancestry as a fact. [17] [18] [19] [20]He invented pyrocollodion, a kind of smokeless powder based on nitrocellulose. This work had been commissioned by the Russian Navy, which however did not adopt its use. In 1892 Mendeleev organized its manufacture.

A very accessible, non-fiction telling of the epic journey and transmutation of the collective human intellect through the ages. The book guides us through the labyrinth of dead ends and discoveries from Thales of Miletus in ancient Greece, through Mendeleyev of mid 19th century Czarist Russia that precipitated the identification and classification of the known elements. Though this may sound boring - it is not.Gordin, Michael D. (2015). Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226000299. Mendeleev, Dmitry Ivanovich; Jensen, William B. (2005). Mendeleev on the Periodic Law: Selected Writings, 1869–1905. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0486445717. Strathern conjures up from the dusty past, and richly fleshes out for us, the long line of extraordinary characters, their lives, influences, and contributions that eventually produced modern chemistry that has so profoundly shaped the modern world. In 1890 he resigned his professorship at St. Petersburg University following a dispute with officials at the Ministry of Education over the treatment of university students. [61] In 1892 he was appointed director of Russia's Central Bureau of Weights and Measures, and led the way to standardize fundamental prototypes and measurement procedures. He set up an inspection system, and introduced the metric system to Russia. [62] [63] When the Princeton historian of science Michael Gordin reviewed this article as part of an analysis of the accuracy of Wikipedia for the 14 December 2005 issue of Nature, he cited as one of Wikipedia's errors that "They say Mendeleev is the 14th child. He is the 14th surviving child of 17 total. 14 is right out." However in a January 2006 article in The New York Times, it was noted that in Gordin's own 2004 biography of Mendeleev, he also had the Russian chemist listed as the 17th child, and quoted Gordin's response to this as being: "That's curious. I believe that is a typographical error in my book. Mendeleyev was the final child, that is certain, and the number the reliable sources have is 13." Gordin's book specifically says that Mendeleev's mother bore her husband "seventeen children, of whom eight survived to young adulthood", with Mendeleev being the youngest. [24] [25]