Biography of Dmitri Mendeleev

Born January 27 (February 8, New Style), 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russian Empire.
Died January 20 (February 2), 1907, St. Petersburg, Russia)
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements

He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered (germanium, gallium and scandium).

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.

Biography of Dmitri Mendeleev