Упрощенная HTML-версия
Even in class of two hundred students everyone was able to follow his
discussions from the beginning to the end. Interesting experiments were made
inhis classes.
In 1868 Mendeleyev began to write a great text book of chemistry, known in
its English translation as the “Principles ofChemistry” Hard work preceded it.
Mendeleyev made thousands of experiments and calculation, wrote a lot of
letters, studied many reports. Everything in the world that was known about
chemical elements Mendeleyev knew. For months, for years he searched for
missing data. All those data were being brought together and grouped in a
special way. When compiling this, he tried to find some system of classifying
the elements some sixty in all then knownwhose properties he was describing.
This led him to formulate the Periodic Law: ‘The properties of elements and,
consequently, the properties of the simple and complex bodies formed from
them are periodic functions of their atomic weights”. The Law earned him
lasting international fame. He presented it verbally to the Russian Chemical
Society in October 1868 and published it in February 1869. But Mendeleyev
was recognized as the author ofthe Periodic Lawonly after gallium, scandium
and germaniumhad been discovered in France, Sweden and Germanyand after
the properties of a number of elements predicted by Mendeleyev had been
confirmed.
Inthis paper he set out clearly his discovery that ifthe elements are arranged
in order of their atomic weights, chemically related elements appear at regular
intervals. The greatness of Mendeleyev’s achievement lies in the fact that he
had discovered a generalization that not only unified an enormous amount of
existing information but pointed the wayto fvuther progress. Today the Periodic
Law is studied by millions of school children and by students at higher
educational establishments ofnatural sciences and engineering. It is studied by
philosophers, historians, teachers and chemists.
The law serves as a basis for thousands of researches. The Periodic Law
crossed national boundaries and has become the property of all nations, just
like theworks ofNewton, Lomonosov, Pavlov, Lobachevsky, Einsteinand other.
Inour country the Russian Chemical Society, a number ofhigher and secondary
schools, some industrial plants have been named after Mendeleyev. The
Academy of Sciences and the Mendeleyev Society award the Mendeleyev Prize
and the MendeleyevGoldMedal for outstanding research work in chemistiy.
Notes
1. honorary board - доска славы, почета
2. missing data—недостающие данные, сведения
3. when compiling this - собирая все материалы и факты
4. some sixty in all — всего около шестидесяти
5. verbally—устно.
16