Dimitri Mendeleiev: biography of the chemist author of the periodic table

Probably a large part of the people who read these lines have seen, studied or worked with the periodic table, which contains the different elements ordered by their atomic weight and Valencia. Although today we see this table as something that, although complex, represents a logical ordering and we take for having established its veracity, the truth is that its creation is very recent at the time that it was originally little taken into account. bill.

The author of this table is the famous chemist Dimitri Mendeleiev, whose biography we are going to make a brief review in this article.

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The biography of Dimitri Mendeleev

Dimitri Mendeleev, whose full name was Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, was born on February 8, 1834 of our Gregorian calendar in Tobolsk, Siberia. Born into a large family, he was the youngest of seventeen siblings, children of the school principal Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleiev and Mariya Dmitriyevna Kornilevas.

During the same year of his birth, his father lost his job as well as his vision, which led to a somewhat precarious situation for the family. Fortunately, his mother went on to run a glass factory owned by her family. This generated a certain curiosity in the little Mendeleev, and her mother often took him with her to the factory.

In this factory he would meet one of the chemists who worked there, something that would end up generating in the young man (along with the influence of an exiled brother-in-law) a great interest in scientific issues.

Early education

As regards his education in childhood, already in it the young Mendeleev showed some interest in things like mathematics and physics. However, the ratings on the rest of the tracks were rather low. Despite this, he managed to get his bachelor's degree from that time.

The year 1848 would be a difficult year for the young man, since his father died during it. In addition, during the month of December of the same year, the factory managed by his mother suffered a fire that ended with its destruction. The family moved to Moscow, because her mother decided to dedicate her savings to the education of the youngest of the family.

However, due to his Siberian origin, he was denied access to the University of that city. After that they moved to Saint Petersburg, where he for the same reasons he could not access the university. However, he was finally able to enroll in the Main Pedagogical Institute of the latter city.

When he was around twenty years old, one of the great chemists in history presented various health problems, among them the presence of violent coughs that were sometimes accompanied by blood. This suggested possible tuberculosis, but he managed to recover from it (whether or not it was a case of tuberculosis, something that is not entirely clear).

He graduated in 1855, his mother dying shortly before, presenting a thesis On specific volumes. After that he obtained a teaching position at a Crimean school. However a few months later he moved to the city of Odessa in Ukraine as a teacher in a local high school.

In 1856 he obtained a scholarship that helped him move to Germany, furthering his studies at the University of Heidelberg and even owning a laboratory in his own home. At this stage he was able to meet great personalities from chemistry and physics, such as Kirchhoff or Cannizzaro, and even participate in the International Congress of Chemistry in Karlsruhe. Later he would return to Saint Petersburg.

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Professional life and scientific contributions

By 1864 he was appointed Professor of Technology and Chemistry at the Saint Petersburg Technical Institute and three years later he held the chair of Chemistry at the University of the same city. However, his reformist ideas and his liberal tendency did not like the elite of the moment, being denied incorporation to the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

It would be in 1869 when he published the book Principles of Chemistry, in which he would formulate his contribution to the best known science, the periodic table. This table started by classifying the elements in an increasing way based on their atomic mass, establishing an order from less to greater and even proposing the existence of elements not yet discovered with properties located between two of those already recognized.

However, although this would be his most recognized contribution, it is not the only one: Mendeleev worked on topics as varied as the expansion of liquids, the search and discovery of the critical point and large contributions that made it possible to improve the Russian oil industry.

He also made various contributions such as the preparation of smokeless gunpowder (developing his own formula). However, in 1890 he resigned his post at the university after a conflict due to his support of student protests.

He retired from political life for a time, but later went on to work as an advisor to the government, including the Ministry of Finance. In 93 he obtained the address of the Office of Weights and Measures (Being also a powerful influence in bringing the metric system to Russia). He later he explored aspects such as radioactivity (meeting the Curie couple). He was also part of the team that designed the first icebreaker.

Mendeleev was an internationally recognized figure, to the point of being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1906. However, the award went to Henri Moissan.

Other aspects that aroused his interest were the exploration and study of solar eclipses or research on fertilizers. Likewise, his study of liquids and their combinations would contribute to generating a specific way of making vodka, which gives it its characteristic 40 degrees of alcohol.

Personal life

Dimitri Mendeleiev had a complicated life, not only professionally but also personally. He was forced by one of his sisters to marry in 1862 with Feozva Nikitichna Leschiova, with whom he had a stormy and difficult relationship and from whose relationship three children emerged (one of whom died). However, nine years later they parted ways.

At this time, in which he had already separated but not yet divorced, he fell in love with Anna Ivanovna Popova, a music student with whom he had a relationship. His still wife initially refused to give him a divorce, although she granted it four years later.

In 1882 he would marry Anna Ivanovna, despite the fact that the seven years required by law to remarry after their divorce had not yet elapsed. This would generate a great controversy and controversy in the Russian society of the time, this being considered bigamy, but it was decided that the punishment would not correspond to the contracting parties but to whom he officiated the wedding. This last marriage was quite happy, with four more children being born from their relationship.

Death and legacy

Dimitri Mendeleev died in Saint Petersburg at the age of 72, on February 2, 1907. His death is associated with suffering from the flu, although it is also it could be associated with the supposed tuberculosis that he suffered in his youth. It also highlights that she suffered a considerable loss of vision, to the point that she practically became blind.

His death was a severe blow to science. However, despite the great relevance of his work, his death did not have a great impact on the Russia of that time. time, probably due to his liberal and reformist ideas, which did not agree with the ideology of the system in which she lived.

His legacy and his extensive contribution to science lives on today, being its systematization of the different elements under study and having allowed the discovery of multiple elements with the passage of time. There is, in fact, an element called Mendelevium in his honor.