 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
 |
|||||||
| Copyright © 2012. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 157
THE'
::::::
Id.
R 9
LAW
In 1884 the Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay went to London
to attend a dinner honoring William Perkin, the discoverer of
mauve, the first synthetic dye. Arriving early, he encountered "a
peculiar foreigner, every hair of whose head acted in independence of
every other." When the foreigner approached, bowing, Ramsay sai(l,
"We are to have a goo(1 attendance, I think?" Discovering that the
man (li(ln't speak English, Ramsey aske(1 him if he spoke German.
"Ja, ein wenig" ("Yes, a little"), the foreigner replie(l. "Ich bin
Mendeleev."
Ramsay related later that, "He is a nice sort of fellow, but his
German is not perfect. He said he was raised in East Siberia and knew
no Russian until he was seventeen years old. I suppose he is a Kalmuck
or one of those outIan(lish creatures." Dimitri Men(leleev~ wasn't a
Kalmuck (the Kalmucks were Buddhist Mongols), but he did have
Like many other Russian names, "Mendeleev" can be transliterated in
several different ways. "Mendeleyev" has been the most common, but
"Mendeleev" is a bit more accurate.
157
OCR for page 158
158
THE LAST SORCERERS
something of an outlandish appearance. He dressed reasonably well,
but his unkempt white hair fell to his shoulders. He was in the habit
of having his hair and beard cut once a year, and to some he might
have looked more like a Siberian shaman than a distinguished
chemist.
It was Mendeleev who discovered the periodic law, a principle
that describes the periodicities that are observed in the properties of
the chemical elements. This enabled him to predict the existence of
as-yet-undiscovered elements, to predict their atomic weights, and to
describe their chemical and physical properties as well. It was
Mendeleev who found the natural order in the elements that his
predecessors Newlands, Chancourtis, and Odling had been seeking.
Mendeleev couldn't explain why there were so many elements; he
didn't even try to do that. But he did discover the existence of striking
patterns.
FIBERS
Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk in western Siberia in 1834. His father
was director of the local high school and the family lived comfort-
ably. However, all that suddenly changed when Mendeleev was still a
child. His father Ivan became blind from cataracts and had to resign
his post. He went to Moscow to have them removed and had an
operation that was a partial success. He could see again and recognize
faces. However, he was still unable to read books and thus couldn't
resume his career, and he did not live long after the operation. After
his (leash, of tuberculosis, his wi(low got his pension, but the money
was far from enough to support the family.
Fortunately, Mendeleev's mother, Maria, was a remarkable
woman. Her father had established the first printing press and pub-
lished the first newspaper in Siberia. Maria apparently inherited some
of his (determination. When her brother wanted to reopen a run(lown
glass factory that he owned at Aremziansk, a village 17 miles from
Tobolsk, he wrote to ask her to recommend a capable manager and
OCR for page 159
THE PERIODIC LAW
159
she recommended herself. Her brother gave her the job, and the
family moved to Aremziansk.
One of the people living in Aremziansk was Nicole Bassargin,
who had been a Decembrist. The Decembrists were a society of
revolutionaries that was organized in the 1820s and made up
primarily of members of the upper class with military backgrounds.
Their goals were the institution of a constitutional monarchy and the
freeing of the serfs. On December 14, 1825, they staged an uprising in
St. Petersburg, which was suppressed by the new Tsar, Nicholas I. Five
of the leaders were executed, and more than a hundred were
sentenced to hard labor in Siberia.
After making the acquaintance of the Mendeleev family, Bassargin
courted and later married Mendeleev's older sister Olga. Since his
release after serving his sentence he had built up a large library, and
he had a great interest in science. During his visits to the family, he
often discussed science with Mendeleev. After his marriage, he settled
in the nearby village of Yaloutorvsk. But his visits to the Mendeleev
home continued, and he continued to tutor Mendeleev in the
sciences.
In 1849, the same year that Dostoevski was arrested and sen-
tence(1 to a Siberian labor camp, (lisaster struck the family again. The
glass factory caught fire one winter night and burned to the ground.
But the 57-year-old Maria Mendeleev again showed her determina-
tion. She (leci(le(1 that she would take her son to Moscow in or(ler to
get him admitted to the university there. She was convinced that he
had great potential.
At the time, Russia was backward compared to the nations of
Western Europe. However, it had one of the best educational systems
on the continent. It boasted good universities and a government
scholarship program (lesigne(1 to aid promising youths who might
otherwise not get university educations. Maria intended to take
advantage of this to secure an education for her son. He would, of
course, have to pass an examination to get a scholarship. But he was a
bright young man, and she had no (1oubt that he would pass.
OCR for page 160
160
THE LAST SORCERERS
It wasn't an easy journey. The Trans-Siberian Railway did not yet
exist. Fifteen years previously a large network of railroads had been
proposed, but Russia's minister of finance, who believed that raid
travel was a threat to "public morals," rejected the idea. Railroads, he
sai(l,"encourage(1 frequent purposeless travel, thus fostering the rest-
less spirit of our age."
If. PETER$BURG
In the absence of railroads, mother and son hitchhiked the 1,300 miles
to Moscow. When they arrived, it appeared at first that their journey
had been in vain. The University of Moscow had a quota system for
admitting students from the provinces, and Siberia had not yet been
given a quota. Thus Mendeleev could not take the examinations for a
scholarship, or even apply to enter the university. But Maria Mendeleev
didn't even consider returning to Siberia. Instead, she set off with her
son, and a (laughter, on the 400-mile journey to St. Petersburg. Shortly
after arriving she discovered that the director of the St. Petersburg
Pedagogical Institute, a college that trained teachers, was Ivan Pletnov,
an old friend of her late husband. Pletnov allowed Mendeleev to apply
for admission to the Institute and to take the scholarship examina-
tions, which he passed. As a scholarship student, Mendeleev lived at
the Institute, which provided room, board, books, and school uni-
forms. When he graduated he would be required to teach for eight
years. However this did not seem an onerous requirement.
Men(leleev stu(lie(1 mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the
Institute. Shortly after he was admitted, his mother died. A year later
his sister Liza, who had accompanied them to St. Petersburg, died
also. But Mendeleev continued to work hard at his studies, graduated
first in his class in 1855, and was awar(le(1 a gold me(lal. However, as
was the custom, the examiners praised not Mendeleev but his chemistry
professor A. A.Voskresenski, for having pro(luce(1 such a fine pupil.
At this time, Men(leleev was not in goo(1 health. He was coughing
blood, and the physician at the Institute hospital diagnosed tuber-
OCR for page 161
THE PERIODIC LAW
161
culosis, giving Mendeleev six months to live. The doctor thought,
however, that a warmer climate might delay the progress of the
disease, so the Institute authorities arranged a teaching post for
Mendeleev at Simferopol in the Crimea. He arrived in Simferopol
only to discover that he didn't have a job after all. The Crimean War
was raging. Simferopo] had been turned into a kind of military camp,
and the school at which he was to have taught was closed. However,
the town officials gave him a month's salary.
There was no reason for Mendeleev to stay in Simferopol, so he
set off for Odessa, a large city in the Ukraine, located on the Black
Sea. There he consulted Dr. Nicolai Pirogov, who had formerly been a
physician at the Pedagogical Institute. Pirogov discovered that
Men(leleev (li(ln't have tuberculosis at all. According to Pirogov, the
coughing of bloo(1 had been caused by a "valvular (lefect" in
Mendeleev's heart. Mendeleev might cough blood again in the future,
Pirogov said, but there was no reason why he shouldn't live well into
old age.
Mendeleev soon got a post teaching mathematics and physics at
an Odessa high school. Granted permission to use the library and
laboratory at Novorossisk University, he launched into research for
his master's thesis. By May of 1856 he had completed a first draft. He
revised it during the summer and was awarded a master of physics
and chemistry (1egree by the University of St. Petersburg in September.
STUDIES IN EUROPE
Six weeks later the 22-year-old Mendeleev won an appointment at
the university as a privat-4ocent, a kind of unsalaried assistant
professor who received part of the fees paid by his students. During
the mid-nineteenth century, Russia was somewhat backward scien-
tifically, so Mendeleev had no contact with leading chemists. How-
ever, in 1859 he got a government grant to pursue further studies in
France and Germany. On the advice of his frien(l, the chemist and
composer Alexsan(lr Boro(lin, he went first to Paris, where he stu(lie
OCR for page 162
162
THE LAST SORCERERS
with Henri Regnault, the noted French chemist and physicist. Then
he went to Heidelberg where he worked in the laboratory of Bunsen
and Kirchhoff.
Kirchhoff and Bunsen's laboratory was an important center of
scientific activity. This should have made it an ideal place for a young
scientist to work. However, Mendeleev did not get along well with
Bunsen, who supervised his experimental work. Mendeleev wanted
to pursue some ideas of his own, while Bunsen expected him to
perform the assignments that were given him. One day Mendeleev's
frustration led to an outburst of anger, and he abruptly walked out.
Though he continued to attend Kirchhoff's and Bunsen's lectures, he
ma(le up his mind to set up his own laboratory in his lodgings.
The University of Heidelberg, which had been founded in 1386,
was a famous institution, and it had quite a few Russian students. It
attracted Russian visitors as well. One of these was the novelist Ivan
Turgenev, who might have had Mendeleev in mind when he later
wrote of"a young Russian chemist living in Heidelberg who was
praised by all who knew him as an uncommon talent." One of the
other people Mendeleev encountered in Heidelberg was his friend
Borodin, who had come to Western Europe for further study after
receiving his (loctorate in chemistry in 1859. Men(leleev and Boro(lin
took short trips to Italy together (luring university holi(lays, but then
Men(leleev began to see less and less of his friend. Boro(lin had
become enamored of a young Russian girl who was in Heidelberg for
her health. The two were married on their return to Russia.
In December 1860 Men(leleev atten(le(1 the congress of chemists
in KarIsruhe, where he heard Cannizzaro speak and read his pamphlet.
The congress took place near the end of Mendeleev's stay in Europe.
Some three months later he was summoned to St. Petersburg to teach
a course in organic chemistry. He was now 27 years old, and his
publications in German and French scientific journals were making
him known outside of Russia. However, he had not yet embarked on
the research that was to make his name known throughout the world.
OCR for page 163
THE PERIODIC LAW
163
RETURN TO Ah. PETER$BURC;
News traveled slowly in those days, and it wasn't until he returned to
Russia that Mendeleev learned that the new Russian tsar, Alexander
II, had just freed the serfs. Alexander, who had come to the throne in
1855, had been appalled by Russian defeats in the Crimean War.
Seeing them as a sign of Russia's backwardness, he instituted a series
of reforms designed to make Russia more like the nations of Western
Europe. He vastly expanded Russia's railroad system, reformed the
judicial system, set up local assemblies and village schools, reorga-
nized the military, freed the serfs, and distributed land to the freed
peasants. Alexander was no democrat, however, and had every inten-
tion of continuing to be an autocratic ruler. In 1862 he reacted to the
spread of radical doctrines by instituting repressive police measures.
After an assassination attempt in 1866, the role of the secret police
was increased even more. Thus the Russia that Mendeleev returned
to combined liberal economic reforms with increasing political
repression.
Mendeleev was not very concerned with political matters at this
time, however. He was far too occupied with his scientific work. He
wrote a doctoral dissertation, completed a 500-page textbook on
organic chemistry, and in 1862 he married. Mendeleev's older sister
Olga arranged the marriage, which Mendeleev initially agreed to.
However, once he began to know his future wife a little, he began to
have doubts. When he conveyed his doubts to his sister, she became
angry. In those days engagements were regarded very seriously, and if
a man broke an engagement, he cast dishonor upon himself while
doing a great wrong to his betrothed. Olga let Mendeleev know what
she thought in no uncertain terms, and he went ahead with the
marriage.
The marriage was not a happy one. The couple argued constantly.
Mendeleev's submersion in his work might also have contributed to
the conflicts with his wife. In addition to lecturing at the university
on organic chemistry, he taught chemistry at a military school and
OCR for page 164
164
THE LAST SORCERERS
continued with his own research. Realizing that Russian scientists
were unaware of the advances in chemistry that had recently been
made in Europe, he translated German works on the subject. He
became interested in scientific agriculture and analyzed soil samples
for the Imperial Free Economics Society. In addition to all this, he
somehow found the time to travel to Baku on the Caspian Sea to
study the methods of producing oil in order to make recommenda-
tions to the owner of a refining company. This was no light under-
taking. In those days of no railroads and poor roads, it was an arduous
journey, yet Men(leleev rea(lily accepted the assignment.
He got his doctorate in 1865 and shortly thereafter was made a
full professor at the University of St. Petersburg. He was now 31 years
old. One of his students was Prince Peter Kropotkin, who was later to
become a prominent anarchist leader. But Mendeleev had many other
students too; as many as 200 would come to see him lecture. His
popularity might have been because he taught in an informal manner,
often relating anecdotes and digressing into such topics as astronomy,
meteorology, geology, biology, and agronomy, even balloon naviga-
tion and the use of artillery. The chemical demonstrations that
Mendeleev and his assistants prepared certainly made an impression
too, especially, one imagines, those that featured explosive reactions.
But of course Men(leleev was much more than a showman. Real-
izing that no adequate textbook of chemistry existed in Russian, he
planned to write his own. At the same time, he continued to ponder a
problem that had long concerned him, the fact that chemistry had no
central gui(ling principle. Surely some kind of or(ler existed in the
chemical elements, 63 of which were then known. There had to be
some pattern.
THE PERIODIC I,AW
In 1867 Mendeleev began writing the first of a two-volume text,
Principl/es of Chemistry. As he wrote, he found it natural to group
elements with similar properties together. In the first volume, he
OCR for page 165
THE PERIODIC LAW
165
discussed the alkali metals: lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium,
and cesium; the halogens: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine,
and their compounds; and the very common elements: hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. This raised the question of what ele-
ments should be discussed first in the second volume and how they
should be grouped together. This caused his thoughts to turn again
to the idea of finding an ordering principle that would show how the
elements were related to one another.
Mendeleev tackled the problem by making up a card for each of
the 63 known elements. On each he wrote the atomic weight of the
element and listed its most significant properties. In order to get the
most accurate atomic weights available, he wrote to a number of
chemists, asking for the figures they had obtained from their measure-
ments. Thus he got information from the Belgian chemist lean Servais
Stas, the French scientist Tean-Baptiste Dumas, the English scientist
Sir William Crookes, the Swedish chemist Kruss Nilson, and a
professor at Prague University, Bohuslav Brauner.
Mendeleev wrote the weights on his cards as he received them.
Then he verified as many as he could with his own experiments. Finally,
he arranged the cards in order of atomic weight, beginning with
hydrogen, the lightest element and en(ling with uranium, the heaviest
then known. On each card he also noted the chemical properties of
the element and certain of its physical properties, such as melting
point, (lensity, and malleability. Then he pore(1 over the car(ls for (lays,
looking for patterns. Finally he pinned the car(ls on a wall, putting
similar elements in horizontal rows. He looked at the table that this
formed, made changes, and pinned the cards on the wall again.
Mendeleev arranged the elements into seven groups. Lithium
(atomic weight 7) was followed by beryllium (9), boron (11), carbon
(12), nitrogen (14), oxygen (16), and fluorine (19~. The next element
in order of atomic weight was sodium (23), which had properties
similar to those of lithium. Therefore, Mendeleev pinned the card for
sodium under that for lithium. Six more cards were placed in the
second row, ending with chlorine under fluorine. He continued in
OCR for page 166
166
THE LAST SORCERERS
the same manner until all 63 cards were placed. When he finished, he
noticed something very striking, that the properties of these elements
"were periodic functions of their atomic weights." In other words, the
same kinds of properties were observed after every seven elements.
There were some problems with the classification, however. At
the time, the atomic weight of beryllium was thought to be 14. If this
weight was used, it had to be placed in a group with nitrogen and
phosphorus, which had very different properties. Mendeleev boldly
concluded that this atomic weight was incorrect. He gave beryllium a
weight of 9 instead. This brought it into the magnesium family, where
it seemed to belong. Then Mendeleev looked at tellurium, which was
supposed to have an atomic weight of 128. That had to be wrong, too.
But if it had a weight between 123 and 126, everything would work
beautifully; it would then fall into the right group. He made even
more dramatic changes in the weights of some elements. For example,
at the time uranium was thought to have an atomic weight of 120.
This didn't fit into Mendeleev's scheme at all, so he boldly doubled
the figure, making it 240 (this is very close to the modern figure,
which is 238~. He made other changes too. For example, he switched
the places of gold and platinum. He had to if his system was to work.
He felt fully justified in doing this. It was inconceivable that the
appearance of such marvelous order was an illusion.
Men(leleev observed that there were some gaps in his table, empty
spaces to which no element was assigned. He concluded that these
represented elements that had not yet been discovered. For example,
there was a gap under boron, so Mendeleev concluded that it must be
an unknown element with properties like boron. He named it eka-
boron ("eka" is Sanskrit for the numeral one). Similarly, there were
gaps under aluminum and silicon. Mendeleev called these missing
elements eke-aluminum and eke-silicon. The positions of the miss-
ing elements in his table allowed him to estimate their atomic weights
and also to (1escribe their chemical and physical properties accurately.
In 1869 Men(leleev's paper on the periodic law,"On the Relation
of the Properties to the Atomic Weights of the Elements," was read
OCR for page 167
THE PERIODIC LAW
167
before the Russian Chemical Society. Mendeleev was id at the time
and couldn't appear at the Society in person, so a colleague, Nicolai
Menshutkin, read the paper. There was little response. If Mendeleev
had read it in person, there would have been a question-and-answer
period, and he could have cleared up points that puzzled the audience.
This might have evoked some interest. However Menshutkin didn't
fully understand the paper he had read, and a discussion wasn't
possible.
Mendeleev's paper did not evoke much interest either when it
was published two months later in the journal of the Chemical
Society. However, matters were different when Mendeleev published
another paper, "The Natural System of the Elements," two years later.
This paper, which contained a revised periodic table (Mendeleev now
listed elements in vertical columns rather than horizontal rows), had
a much greater response. Russian chemists read it with great interest,
as did foreign chemists when the paper was translated into German
the same year.
Mendeleev was not alone in making this discovery. In Germany
Lothar Meyer discovered the periodic law independently. However,
Mendeleev published first and thus had priority. Furthermore, Meyer
made no attempt to predict the properties of unknown elements as
Mendeleev did. Thus Mendeleev is generally given sole credit for the
liscovery.
A PREDICTION CONFIRMED
In 1875 the French chemist Emil Lecoq de Boisbau~ron discovered
Men(leleev's eke-aluminum and named it gallium after the ancient
name for France (the right to name an element is the discoverer's
even if its existence has already been predicted). When Mendeleev
heard of the discovery, he naturally announced that his prediction
was confirmed. Lecoq (lisagree(l. Men(leleev had pre(licte(1 an element
with a (lensity of 5.94 (that is, 5.94 times heavier than water) while
his element had a density of 4.7. However, when a second
OCR for page 168
168
THE LAST SORCERERS
determination of the density was made, it was discovered that Lecoq's
first result was in error. The actual density of gallium turned out to be
5.91, very close to Mendeleev's prediction.
The discovery of gallium was followed by the discovery of scan-
dium (Mendeleev's eke-boron) in 1879 and of germanium (eka-sili-
con) in 1886. The new elements had the approximate atomic weights
and properties that Mendeleev had predicted. The scientific world
was astonished. It is probably safe to say that before Mendeleev's predic-
tions were confirmed, no chemist would have believed that the prop-
erties of unknown elements could be predicted with such accuracy.
SEPARATION
At about the same time that Mendeleev's predictions began to be con-
firmed, his relationship with his wife, Feozva, reached a low point.
Because both found the situation unbearable, they decided to separate.
It was agreed that Feozva would live on the couple's country estate
during the academic year when Mendeleev was in St. Petersburg and
that she would live in St. Petersburg when he lived on the estate dur-
ing the summers. The couple's two children would stay with their
mother.
However happy Men(leleev might have been to separate from his
wife, he undoubtedly missed his son and daughter. However, it is
unlikely that he spent a great deal of time thinking about the matter.
He kept as busy as always, and in 1876 the Russian government sent
him to stu(ly oil-(lrilling practices in Pennsylvania. The first commer-
cial of] wed had been drilled there in 1859, and it was hoped that
Mendeleev could use what he learned to make recommendations
about the (levelopment of Russian of] fields.
While he was in Pennsylvania, Mendeleev visited refineries, inter-
viewe(1 people who worked in the local oil industry, and stu(lie(1 the
rock formations in regions where of] was found. Thus in Russia,
Mendeleev is remembered not only as a chemist, but also as the father
of the Russian oil industry, and justifiably so, because he contributed
OCR for page 169
THE PERIODIC LAW
169
more than anyone else to the development of Russian oil production.
On his return to Russia he invented a new method of refining and
tested it under factory conditions. He went to southern Russia to
study the oil-bearing land there and wrote a book titled The Petrol/eum
Industry in Pennsylvania and the Caucasus.
When Mendeleev traveled around Russia, he didn't do so in the
style that most government appointees would have demanded.
Instead, he bought third-cIass tickets so that he could converse with
the common people. He learned of their bitter feelings about the
repressive Russian government. And these were ordinary people, not
political revolutionaries like the exiles he had known in Siberia. From
time to time, he denounced the abuses of the Russian bureaucracy.
For most people this would have been dangerous, but Mendeleev was
Russia's most famous scientist, and there would have been very
vociferous protests if he was arrested or taken away by the secret
police. Furthermore, he advocated liberal, not revolutionary, ideas.
He believed in the possibility of reform and never advocated over-
throwing the monarchy. So the tsarist government employed the
strategy of sen(ling him away on some government mission when-
ever his complaints caused too much embarrassment.
Mendeleev did not share the attitudes toward women that were
common in his day. He didn't believe that women were fully the
intellectual equals of men, but he thought that men and women
should be treated equally in the workplace and that women should
have the same educational opportunities as men. Consequently he
admitted women to his lectures at the university, something that was
almost unheard of in his day.
His liberalism ma(le him some enemies but because of his stature
they were unable to do him much harm. In 1880 the Imperial
Academy of Sciences refused to elect Men(leleev to membership,
electing instead Frie(lrich Beilstein, a German professor at the Impe-
rial Technological Institute. But the University of Moscow soon made
him an honorary member, possibly in response to the Imperial
Aca(lemy's action. Men(leleev seems not to have been bothered by the
OCR for page 170
170
THE LAST SORCERERS
snub. In any case, he soon had honors enough, receiving the Davy
medal from England's Royal Society and the Faraday medal from the
English Chemical Society. When Mendeleev came to England to
receive these honors, the English called him"Faust"; he was the
magician who had predicted the properties of elements that no one
had ever seen. He received numerous other honors also, including
awards and honorary degrees from the German and American
chemical societies and from the universities of Princeton, Cambridge,
Oxford, and Gottingen.
MENDELEEV1HE BlGAMI$T
In 1887 Mendeleev's sister Ekaterina came to St. Petersburg to keep
house for him. She brought her children with her and also a 19-year-
old girl, Anna Ivanova Popov, who studied at the St. Petersburg
Academy of Art with Ekaterina's daughter. At first Mendeleev saw
little of either Ekaterina or Anna. The part of the apartment that
contained Mendeleev's bedroom and study had a private entrance.
Normally he didn't see any of the other occupants of his apartment
except when Ekaterina brought him his meals. However he soon
began to catch glimpses of an attractive young woman. Before long
he found himself becoming infatuated with her. Naturally this pre-
sented difficulties. After all, he was still married.
Mendeleev married Anna in 1882 after divorcing his wife. Russian
law prohibited remarriage for seven years after a divorce. But
Mendeleev paid an Orthodox priest, who was later defrocked, to give
him a dispensation. When a member of the tsar's court remarked on
Men(leleev's bigamy, the tsar is supposed to have replie(l,"I admit
Mendeleev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev."
Men(leleev's con(luct was subsequently ignored.
The marriage was happy, and being married to Anna changed
the character of Mendeleev's life. He had previously spent most of his
time alone. Now, twice a week, he and Anna held informal parties.
The guests were artists, musicians, and scientists. Men(leleev became
OCR for page 171
THE PERIODIC LAW
171
interested in art, and he even wrote an article about a painting for a
newspaper. In 1894 the Academy of Art elected him to membership.
Ironically, he had gained admission to the Academy of Art but not to
the Academy of Sciences.
PROTE$T
When Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, Alexander III, who suc-
ceeded him, continued his father's harsh policies. In some respects
the son's government became more oppressive than his father's. This
was certainly true in the case of education. Count I. D. Delyanov, who
was appointed minister of education, lowered the quota for Jewish
students, so that many of them could not obtain any education above
the elementary level. Opposed to education for women, he closed the
Women's Medical College, an institution founded by Borodin.
Wishing to deny higher education to the "children of coachmen, foot-
men, laundresses and small shopkeepers," Delyanov eliminated many
of the government scholarships like the one that had allowed
Mendeleev to obtain an education, and he raised tuition fees. In
(lefiance of the government, Men(leleev continued to admit women
to his lectures. Again he was left alone. Thinking of himself as "an
evolutionist of a peaceful type," he did not sympathize with the revo-
Jutionary ideas of some of his students. Nevertheless, he used his
influence to help them when they got into trouble.
One (lay in March 1890 Men(leleev encountered a large student
demonstration as he left the university. The students were agitating
for the reversal of Delyanov's edicts. Later that day, one of his chemistry
students came to his apartment and asked him to come to a student
meeting that was to be held at a later (late. Men(leleev went. The main
order of business was the reading of a petition that a student com-
mittee had prepared. It was imme(liately accepted. But this raised the
question of who should take the petition to Delyanov. If a student did
this, Delyanov was likely to throw it into a wastebasket without read-
ing it so Men(leleev was asked to present the petition. He agreed.
OCR for page 172
172
THE LAST SORCERERS
Mendeleev took the petition to Delyanov's office two days later.
Some time after that a messenger brought the unopened envelope
back. The unread petition was accompanied by a message that read:
"On the instruction of the Minister of Education, the enclosed docu-
ment is returned to Councilor of State Professor Mendeleev, since
neither the Minister nor anyone else in the service of His Imperial
Majesty has the right to accept a document of this nature." Mendeleev
was furious. The next day he submitted his resignation to the univer-
sity. Neither his colleagues nor the rector were able to persuade him
to reconsider nor was he swayed by his students' pleas. Mendeleev
gave his last lecture on March 22.
Mendeleev and Anna had to find a new apartment, because the
university provided the one they were living in. When they had moved
in, Men(leleev set up a laboratory in one of the rooms. This allowe
him to continue to perform experiments and to submit papers to
scientific journals.
Although Mendeleev's resignation was an act of political protest,
the Russian government continued to consult him on various matters.
He was far too valuable a resource to be ignored. For example, like
Lavoisier, he was put to work improving gunpowder. Receiving a
commission from the Russian admiralty to improve the smokeless
powder that was then in use, Mendeleev set to work at once and
within a year he produced a product that was superior to most foreign
powders.
BUREAU OF WHICH AND MEASURES
In 1893 the Russian minister of finance, who was familiar with
Men(leleev's contributions to Russian industry, offere(1 him the post
of (Erector of the Russian Bureau of Weights an(1 Measures.
Mendeleev accepted, and he and his family (he and Anna now had
several children) moved once again, to an apartment in one of the
bureau's buildings. Mendeleev launched into the job with enthusiasm.
OCR for page 173
THE PERIODIC LAW
173
Determined to bring order to the chaotic systems of measurement
then used in Russia, he used techniques developed abroad and
invented some measuring devices himself. He established the metric
system in Russia and insisted on a greater precision in measuring
equipment.
When Mendeleev discovered that his employees had been given
substandard housing, he badgered government officials until new
apartments were built for them. He employed women as well as men
in the Bureau and found that some of the women did work that was
superior to that of their male counterparts.
In 1899 the Russian government asked Mendeleev to go to the
Urals to study the iron industry. He remained there until he had
enough material for an 866-page book, The Iron Industry of the Ural/s
in the Year 1899. In 1902 he revised his periodic table, adding a new
column for the newly discovered inert gasses (helium, argon,
krypton, and xenon). He also became a map maker, producing a large
map of Russia that was more accurate than any that preceded it.
Though he was now nearly 70, it seemed that Mendeleev had more
energy than ever.
In 1902 Mendeleev was forced to take a short rest from his labors.
Like his father, he developed cataracts and had to have them operated
_, --- A- ---r ~
upon. His eyes were bandaged for two weeks. When the bandages
came offend he found that his vision had improved, he plunged back
into his work.
REVOLUTION
In January 1905 St. Petersburg experienced a series of strikes, and the
organization that had fomented some of them, the Assembly of
Russian Workingmen, decided to present a request for reforms to Tsar
Nicholas II. The Assembly's leader, a monk named Georgy Capon,
arranged a demonstration before the tsar's winter palace. But the tsar
was away at the time, and matters fell into the hands of his uncle,
OCR for page 174
174
THE LAST SORCERERS
Grand Duke VIadimir. Though it was a peaceful demonstration, the
duke ordered the police to open fire on the demonstrators. More than
a hundred were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
The massacre was followed by general strikes in St. Petersburg
and other cities and by peasant uprisings. Military units, including
army units stationed along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, also joined
the revolt. Nicholas attempted to quell the revolt by announcing the
formation of an elected assembly to serve in an advisory capacity to
the government. But when election procedures were announced in
August, there was even more protest, and a railroad strike that began
in October incited general strikes in most of the large cities. But in
the end, the revolution failed. The government arrested most of the
revolutionary lea(lers, and the military suppressed revolts in Georgia,
in the provinces bordering the Baltic Sea, and in Poland. The govern-
ment regained control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and quelled
revolt in rebellious army units.
Although the revolution failed to overthrow the tsarist govern-
ment and set up a democratic state in its place, some of its goals were
achieved. The government felt compelled to institute numerous
reforms, and it created a legislative body, the Duma. The hope
cherished by Men(leleev and other liberals that change could be
brought about by peaceful evolution had been dashed. However it
did appear that Russia was beginning to evolve into a democracy.
Mendeleev died too soon to witness the far more violent revolu-
tion in 1917. In the fall of 1906 he fell ill. He was diagnosed with
influenza, and he went to Cannes in southern France to recuperate.
At first he seemed to have recovered, but symptoms of his illness be-
gan to reappear after he returned to Russia. Matters became worse in
January 1907 when he contracted pneumonia, and during the early
hours of January 20 he died.
Mendeleev was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery on January 25.
His funeral was attended by thousands, including some students
carrying a large tablet on which the periodic table was inscribed. That
night the streetlights of St. Petersburg were draped with black crepe.
OCR for page 175
THE PERIODIC LAW
175
In 1955 Albert Ghiorso and his colleagues at the University of
California at Berkeley discovered the artificial element mendelevium.
The scientists produced mendelevium one atom at a time, getting 17
atoms in all. Mendelevium was added to the periodic table as element
number 101.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
atomic weight
