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182nd Birthday of Periodic Table Creator Dmitir Mendeleev: His
contribution and use of Sanskrit
All you need to know about Dmitir Mendeleev, creator of Periodic Table, on
his 182nd birth anniversary.
Did you know that the Creator of the Periodic Table, Dmitir Mendeleev,
predicted eight elements in his table using the prefixes which are derived
from Sanskrit ? Today is his 182nd birth anniversary and here is all that
you need to know about him and his contribution to the Periodic Table.
Father of Periodic Table
The famous Russian Chemist who was the inventor of the infamous Periodic
Law, Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, is often regarded as the farsighted
father of periodic table elements. Born in 8 February, 1834 in the village
of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near Tobolsk in Siberia, Mendeleev was raised as an
Orthodox Christian by his parents. He later deviated from the missionary
ideas of the church and embraced deism instead at his later life. After
acquiring his higher education in various parts of Russia he returned to
Saint Petesberg in 1857 to cure his tuberculosis.
Other Theories
In the year 1864 he joined the Saint Petersburg Technological Institute
and in 1865 the Saint Petersberg State University as Professor. He had
developed the chemistry department of the state university to one of the
most internationally recognized centres for chemistry research, with his
impeccable knowledge in the subject. With 56 known elements in the year
1863, new elements were coming up at the rate of at least one per year.
John Newlands and Lothar Meyer were some of the notable scientists who
described their models for periodic table earlier. Newlands described it
through the Law of Octaves, saying the periodicity of elements depends
upon the atomic weight that they carry. On the contrary Meyer was of the
view that there are 28 elements in the table that can be classified by
their valence. He didnt predict any new elements in the table.
What was Dmitir Mendeleev contribution to the Periodic Table?
This is when Mendeleev came into picture, during his professorship at the
Saint Petersberg State University. He decided to classify the elements in
the periodic table through the chemical properties associated with them.
He devised his own model of extended periodic table and on 06 March 1869,
he presented his model to the Russian Chemical Society and named it, The
Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements.
He presented his own periodic table with several new predicted elements
and completed it. He came out with his own periodic table in the year
1871.
He named the predicted eight elements in his table using the prefixes eka,
dvi and tri, which are derived from Sanskrit. This clearly proved his
appreciation to the Sanskrit Grammarians of ancient India, who were the
forefathers of discovering a sophisticated theory of language. It is often
said that his work resembles with that of Sanskritist Bohtlingk who found
the phonological patterning of sounds with the Sanskirt language in his
book Panini. Mendeleev similarly found chemical properties of elements
function according to their atomic weights. His predictions of rare earth
elements ekaboron (Eb), ekaaluminium (Ea), ekamanganese(Em) and ekasilicon
(Es) along with thorium and uranium and noble gases helium and argon, all
found its place later at the periodic table. HE IS ALSO GIVEN THE CREDIT
FOR INTRODUCING THE METRIC SYSTEM TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
For his outstanding contribution in the field of Chemistry, he was given
the Davy Medal from the Roayal Society of London in the year 1882 along
with Lothar Meyer. He died on 2 February, 1907 at the age of 72 in Saint
Petersburg.
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