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INTRODUCING THE PERIODIC TABLE TO THE WESTERN WORLD: FIRST EDITIONS OF TWO KEY PAPERS RELATING TO MENDELEEV'S DISCOVERY OF THE PERIODIC LAW-ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES IN MODERN CHEMISTRY. One of the most consequential scientific discoveries of the last 150 years was Dmitri Mendeleev's realization that if the chemical elements were listed in a natural order (originally by atomic weight, and later by atomic number), then the list could be broken down into rows and displayed in the form of a table in which the elements within each column of the table had similar chemical properties. The resulting tabular display of the elements is now known as the periodic table. Mendeleev explained the ability to construct such tables in terms of a general principle that chemical properties change periodically as one moves along the ordered list of elements. This insight had an important immediate consequence: it facilitated the identification of gaps in the list of known elements, and enabled chemists to predict the properties of the elements that would later be discovered to fill those gaps. Even more importantly, periodicity stimulated other theoretical advances. As E.R. Scerri notes: "Whenever scientists are presented with a useful pattern or system of classification, it is only a matter of time before they begin to ask whether there may be some underlying explanation for the pattern. The periodic system is no exception." (The Periodic Table, p. xix). Thus, the periodicity of element's chemical properties found a natural explanation in Bohr's 1913 proposal of a "quantum" model of the atom in which electrons were arranged in concentric "shells," each with a characteristic fixed size. As atomic number increased, so did the number of electrons in an atom. The additional electrons were added to the outermost shell one-by-one until it was full, and then they began occupying a new outer shell. The atoms of chemically similar elements were postulated to have the same number of electrons in their outer shells. In turn, that insight led to later developments in quantum theory-such as the Pauli exclusion principle and the spin-statistics theorem-which provided an explanatory framework for, and refined, Bohr's "shell" model. Like all prescient discoverers, Mendeleev stood on the shoulders of giants. The organization of the elements into groups with similar properties goes back to at least the eighteenth century, and some chemists had experimented in the 1860s with tabular arrangements of elements listed in order of increasing atomic weight (see Edward G. Mazurs, Graphic Representations of the Periodic System during One Hundred Years, ch. 1). Lothar Meyer, for example, drew a periodic table in 1868 but did not publish it. It was Mendeleev, however, who in 1869 announced the periodic law as the natural principle underlying such tables: "Mendeleev] is by far the leading discoverer of the [periodic] system. Although he was not the first to develop a periodic system, his version is the one that created the biggest impact on the scientific community at the time it was introduced and thereafter. His name is invariably and justifiably connected with the periodic system, to the same extent perhaps as Darwin's name is synonymous with the theory of evolution and Einstein's with the theory of relativity. "Although it may be possible to quibble about certain priority aspects of his contributions, there is no denying that Mendeleev was also the champion of the periodic system in the literal sense of propagating the system, defending its validity, and devoting time to its elaboration." (Scerri, The Periodic Table, p. 101). Mendeleev's discovery was initially announced in a paper read before the Russian Chemical Society in St. Petersburg in 1869, and published the same year in the Journal of the Russian Chemical Society (Zhurnal russkago khimicheskago obshchestva). However, it is the two works offered here that put the discovery before the eyes of chemists. Seller Inventory # 2505
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