Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
Would-you do the same as his mother did?
Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on February 7, 1834 . The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy was the youngest of 14 children (or 11 or 17, depending on the authority) born to Maria Dimitrievna Korniliev and Ivan Pavlovitch Mendeleev. His father (called Mendeleev because early in life he dealt in horses, "mjenu djelatj" = to make an exchange(1)) was director of the local gymnasium. Maria Korniliev's family settled in Tobolsk in the early 1700's and introduced paper- and glass-making to Siberia.(1) Unfortunately, Ivan died when Dimitri was quite young, leaving his wife to support the large family. The pension for educators at that time (1000 rubles) was drastically insufficient, especially for a large family, which meant that Maria had no other choice but to find work. Maria's family owned a glass factory in Aremziansk, and they allowed her to take over managing the company for a modest wage from which she could support the family.
Mendeleev's early years were was raised with three key thoughts:
"Everything in the world is science," from Bessargin his sister`s husband
"Everything in the world is art," from Timofei the glass blower.
"Everything in the world is love," from Maria his mother. (3)
As he grew older, it became apparent that he had exceptional comprehension of complex topics. At the age of 14, he was attending the Gymnasium in Tobolsk and his mother was continuing to plan for his future. In that year, however, a second major family tragedy occurred; the glass factory burned to the ground. The family was devastated; there was no money to rebuild and the only money they had was the money saved for Dimitri to go to the university. Maria was not about to give up her dreams for her son. She knew at this point that Dimitri's only hope to go on to school was to win a scholarship. So in his final years at the gymnasium, Maria pushed Dimitri to improve his grades and prepare for entrance exams.
This was no easy task, as Dimitri was not a "classical" scholar. He knew at a very young age that he wanted to study science and saw very little need for studying topics such as Latin and history. He felt that these were dead topics and a waste of his time.
...We could live at the present day without a Plato, but a double number of Newtons is required to discover the secrets of nature, and to bring life into harmony with the laws of nature. (1)
When Dimitri Ivanovitch finished the school, they found a friend of Ivan's working at the Pedagogical Institute, his father's school. With a little persuasion, Dimitri was allowed to take the entrance exams, which he passed, not with honors but well enough to be admitted to the science teacher training program on a full scholarship. He entered the university ofSt. Petersburg in the fall of 1850.
Maria died shortly after Dimitri's acceptance at St. Petersburg, followed a few short months later by Elizabeth; both died from tuberculosis. Mendeleev was left alone to face his work at the university,
Dimitri's was also ill his illness did not improve, his doctor suggested that he had tuberculosis and that, at most, he had two years to live providing he moved to a more suitable climate. Mendeleev already had his life's ambitions in mind and, hoping to extend his life as long as possible, he moved to Simferopol in the Crimean Peninsula near the Black Sea in 1855 as chief science master of the gymnasium. He was 21 years old. Needless to say, his move to the south was very beneficial. He progressively regained his strength to the point where the doctors found no sign of tuberculosis in his system.
In 1856, Mendeleev returned to St. Petersburg." In 1859, he was assigned by the Minister of Public Instruction to go abroad to study and develop scientific and technological innovations. Between 1859 and 1861 he studied the densities of gases with Regnault in Paris and the workings of the spectroscope with Kirchoff in Heidelberg. He also pursued studies of capillarity and surface tension that led to his theory of "absolute boiling point," later known as critical temperature. While in Heidelberg he made the acquaintance of A.P. Borodin, a chemist who was to achieve greater reknown as a composer. In 1860 at the Chemical Congress at Karlsruhe, Mendeleev had the opportunity to hear Cannizzaro discuss his work on atomic weights. These people greatly influenced the work which Mendeleev would pursue the rest of his life.
Following his trip abroad, the Russian chemist returned to his homeland where he settled down to a life of teaching and research in St. Petersburg. In 1863 he was named Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and, in 1866, he became Professor of Chemistry at the University and was made Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". As will be seen, his research findings were expansive and beneficial to the Russian people. Dimitri was always in touch with the classroom. Much of his lab work, including that on the periodic chart, occurred in his spare time following his lectures. He truly enjoyed educating the people, and they, in turned enjoyed his efforts:
Following his trip abroad, the Russian chemist returned to his homeland where he settled down to a life of teaching and research in St. Petersburg. In 1863 he was named Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and, in 1866, he became Professor of Chemistry at the University and was made Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". As will be seen, his research findings were expansive and beneficial to the Russian people. Dimitri was always in touch with the classroom. Much of his lab work, including that on the periodic chart, occurred in his spare time following his lectures. He truly enjoyed educating the people, and they, in turned enjoyed his efforts:
...For me it was a revelation, a beautiful improvisation, a stimulant to the intellect which left deep traces on my development.(3)
For Mendeleev, science was always the most important subject, but in that time period of unrest, just as today, science could be expanded to the realms of politics and social inequality. Mendeleev was not afraid to express his views on these topics:
> There exists everywhere a medium in things, determined by equilibrium. The Russian proverb says, 'Too much salt or too little salt is alike an evil.' It is the same in political and social relations... It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man - social and political - and to the entire universe as a whole.
Dimitri's personal life also appears to have been in turmoil for many years. In 1863, with the influence of his sister Olga, Dimitri married Feozva Nikitchna Lascheva. They had two children. Mendeleev never really loved Feozva and actually spent little time with her. One story suggests that, at one point in their life together, Feozva asked Mendeleev if he was married to her or to science; his response was that he was married to both unless that was bigamy, in which case he was married to science. In January 1882, he divorced Feozva so he could marry his niece's best friend, Anna Ivanova Popova. According to the Orthodox Church, Mendeleev was officially a bigamist; however, he was so famous in Russia that the Czar said "Mendeleev has two wives, yes, but I have only one Mendeleev".(2) Anna was considerably younger than Dimitri but the two loved each other very much and were together until his death. They had four children: Liubov, Ivan, and twins Vassili and Maria. Anna also had considerable influence over Mendeleev's views on art, and he was elected to the Academy of Arts for both his insightful criticism and his painting.
As he grew older it also became apparent that personal appearance became less and less significant to him. Many stories abound relating to the idea that in his later years, Dimitri would only cut his hair and beard once a year. He would not even cut it by request of the tsar. One observer stated, "Every hair acted separate from the others." It becomes apparent that, in most respects, work came first for Dimitri Mendeleev.
From his first publication in 1854 entitled "Chemical Analysis of a Sample from Finland" to his final works in 1906 such as "A Project for a School for Teachers" and "Toward Knowledge of Russia", Mendeleev's transcripts revealing his research findings and beliefs number well over 250. His most famous publications include Organic Chemistry, which was published in 1861 when he was 27 years old. This book won the Domidov Prize and put Mendeleev on the forefront of Russian chemical education. The first edition of Principles of Chemistry was printed in 1868. Both of these books are classroom texts. Again, Mendeleev never lost sight of the importance of education.
His greatest accomplishment, however, was the stating of the Periodic Law and the development of the Periodic Table. From early in his career, he felt that there was some type of order to the elements, and he spent more than thirteen years of his life collecting data and assembling the concept. Mendeleev was one of the first modern-day scientists in that he did not rely solely on his own work but rather was in correspondence with scientists around the world in order to receive data that they had collected. He then used their data along with his own data to arrange the elements according to their properties.
In 1866, Newlands published a relationship of the elements entitled the "Law of Octaves". Mendeleev's ideas were similar to those of Newlands but Dimitri had more data and felt that Newlands had not gone far enough in his research. By 1869, the Russian chemist had assembled detailed descriptions of more than 60 elements and, on March 6, 1869 a formal presentation was made to the Russian Chemical Society entitled "The Dependence Between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements." Unfortunately, Mendeleev was ill and the presentation was given by his colleague Professor Menshutken. There were eight points to his presentation:
On November 29, 1870, Mendeleev took his concept even further by stating that it was possible to predict the properties of undiscovered elements. He then proceeded to make predictions for three new elements (eka-aluminum, eka-boron and eka-silicon) and suggested several properties of each, including density, radii, and combining ratios with oxygen, among others. The science world was perplexed, and many scoffed at Mendeleev's predictions. It was not until November, 1875, when the Frenchman Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered one of the predicted elements (eka-aluminum) which he named Gallium, that Dimitri's ideas were taken seriously. The other two elements were discovered later and their properties were found to be remarkably similar to those predicted by Mendeleev. These discoveries, verifying his predictions and substantiating his law, took him to the top of the science world. He was 35 years old when the initial paper was presented.
In his last lecture at the University of St. Petersburg Mendeleev said:
I have achieved an inner freedom. There is nothing in this world that I fear to say. No one nor anything can silence me. This is a good feeling. This is the feeling of a man. I want you to have this feeling too - it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom. I am an evolutionist of a peaceable type. Proceed in a logical and systematic manner. (3)
Dimitri Mendeleev was a man who rose out of the crowd to lead his people into the future. The motto of Mendeleev's life was work, which he stated as:
Work, look for peace and calm in work: you will find it nowhere else. Pleasures flit by - they are only for yourself; work leaves a mark of long-lasting joy, work is for others. (4)
On January 20, 1907 at the age of 73, while listening to a reading of Jules Verne's Journey to the North Pole, (1) Mendeleev floated away, peacefully, for the last time.
Bibliography
1. B. Harrow, Eminent Chemists of Our Time, 2nd Ed., Van Nostrand, New York,1927, pp. 18-40; 273-285.
2. H.M. Leicester, "Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev", in E. Farber, ed., Great Chemists., Interscience, New York, 1961.
3. D.Q. Posin, Mendeleev, The Story of a Great Chemist, Whittlesey House, New York, 1948.
4. T.R. Seshadri, "Mendeleev-as Teacher and Patriot", in T.R. Sheshadri, , ed., Mendeleev's Periodic Classification of Elements and Its Applications, Proceedings of the Symposium held at IIT Kharagpur to celebrate the centenary of Mendeleev's Periodic Classification, Hindustan Pub. Co., Delhi-110007, India, 1973.
5. T.E. Thorpe, "Scientific Worthies XXVI. Dmitri Ivanowitsh Mendeleeff", Nature , 1889, XL, 193-197.
Special thanks to professors: Roger Rumppe and Michael E. Sixtusof the University of Princeton NJ, a piece of their work we publish.