Probably a great part of the people who read these lines have seen, studied or worked with the periodic table, in which the different elements are ordered by their atomic weight and valence. Although today we see this table as something that, although complex, represents a logical order and we take its veracity for granted, the truth is that its creation is very recent in time that was originally little considered.

The author of this table is the famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, whose biography we will briefly review in this article.

Dmitri Mendeleev’s biography

Dmitry Mendeleev, whose full name was Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, was born on 8 February 1834 in our Gregorian calendar in Tobolsk, Siberia . Born into a large family, he was the youngest of seventeen children of the headmaster Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev 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 moved on to run a glass factory owned by her family. This made little Mendeleev curious, and his mother often took him to the factory with her.

In that 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 matters.

Early education

As far as his childhood education is concerned, young Mendeleev already showed some interest in such aspects as mathematics and physics . However, the grades in the other subjects were rather low. Despite this, he managed to get his bachelor’s degree at that time.

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

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

When he was about twenty years old, the man who would become one of the great chemists of history presented various health problems, among them the presence of violent coughs that were sometimes accompanied by blood . This made us think of possible tuberculosis, but he managed to recover from his illness (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 position as a teacher in a school in the Crimea. However, a few months later he moved to the city of Odessa in the Ukraine as a teacher in a local high school .

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

Professional life and scientific contributions

By 1864 he was appointed Professor of Technology and Chemistry at the Technical Institute of St. Petersburg and three years later he held the chair of Chemistry at the University of the same city. However, his reformist and liberal ideas did not please the elite of the time, and he was denied membership in the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

It would be in 1869 when he would publish the book Principles of Chemistry , in which he would formulate his contribution to the best known science, the periodic table . This table was based on classifying the elements in an increasing manner according to their atomic mass, establishing an order from lesser 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 for and discovery of the critical point and great contributions that allowed the improvement of 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 because of his support for student protests.

He retired from political life for a while, but later went on to work as an advisor to the government, including the Ministry of Finance. In 93 he obtained the direction of the Office of Weights and Measures (he was also a powerful influence in bringing the metric system to Russia). 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 prize was awarded to Henri Moissan.

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

Personal life

Dmitry Mendeleev had a complicated life, not only professionally but also personally. He was forced by one of his sisters to marry in 1862 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 separated.

During this time, when 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 refused to give him a divorce initially, although she granted it four years later.

In 1882 he would marry Anna Ivanovna , even though the seven years required by law to remarry after his divorce had not yet passed. This would generate a great controversy in Russian society at the time, this being considered bigamy, but it was decided that the punishment would not correspond to the bride and groom but to the one who officiated at the wedding. This last marriage was quite happy, with four more children born from their relationship.

Death and legacy

Dmitry Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg at the age of 72 on February 2, 1907. His death is associated with the illness of a flu, although it could also be associated with the alleged tuberculosis he suffered in his youth . It is also worth noting that he suffered considerable loss of vision, to the point that he practically became blind.

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

His legacy and his extensive contribution to science is still valid today, being his systematization of the different elements under study and having allowed the discovery of multiple elements over time. There is, in fact, an element called mendelevium in his honour.