Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev is a Russian scientist, chemist, physicist, metrologist, economist, technologist, geologist, meteorologist, oil worker, teacher, aeronaut and instrument maker. Corresponding Member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Among the most famous discoveries is the periodic law of chemical elements (see interesting facts about chemistry).
The biography of Dmitry Mendeleev is full of many interesting facts that relate to his personal and scientific life.
So, here is a short biography of Mendeleev.
Family and childhood
Dmitry Mendeleev was born into the family of a director in charge of the local gymnasium and colleges of the Tobolsk district. Dmitry was the last, seventeenth child. Of all the children, only eight survived; the rest died either in infancy or adolescence.
In his childhood and youth, Mendeleev was not interested in studying - he always brought low grades from the gymnasium, and Latin was especially difficult for him.
His mother occupied a special place in the life of Dmitry Mendeleev. She herself did not graduate from any educational institutions, but independently completed the entire course of the gymnasium where her older brothers studied. After her husband’s illness, all the burdens fell on her shoulders. And after his death, she supported the whole family by managing her brother’s factory.
Over time, realizing that her youngest son needed a good education, she gathered him and her youngest daughter and left her native Siberia for Moscow so that Dmitry could enter the university. When Dmitry was enrolled in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University, she unexpectedly died.
Study and scientific activities
Despite his dislike of studying as a child, Mendeleev graduated from the Pedagogical Institute with a gold medal.
In 1855, he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. Without delaying treatment, Mendeleev left for Crimea, where the famous doctor Pirogov was then staying. Despite the pessimistic forecasts of St. Petersburg doctors, after an examination, Pirogov advised Mendeleev to prepare for a long life and simply take care of his health. Surprisingly, the future scientist soon completely recovered from a difficult illness at that time.
But in Simferopol, he not only undergoes a course of treatment, but also works at the local boys’ gymnasium, teaching natural sciences. After treatment in Simferopol, he moved to Odessa, where he taught at the Richelieu Lyceum again for one academic year, then returned to the then capital, St. Petersburg, and defended his master's thesis.
Soon his work “Isomorphism in connection with other relationships of crystalline form to composition” was published separately in St. Petersburg, and Mendeleev received a master’s degree.
At the beginning of 1857, he was hired as a private assistant professor at the Imperial University of St. Petersburg in the department of chemistry. For the next 33 years he would lecture at this educational institution, from 1865 as a professor.
Experiments and discoveries
For his outstanding achievements in science, Mendeleev was sent to Germany for two years - on a business trip and to exchange experience with local scientists. He was assigned to the University of Heidelberg.
Despite the different level of equipment, in Germany Mendeleev simply did not have a place to conduct his capillary experiments. Therefore, in a rented apartment, he equips a laboratory, supplies gas there, orders the necessary instruments from European craftsmen, and begins to conduct his experiments. During those years he worked on molecular mechanics.
In 1859, he managed to construct a pycnometer - a device that allows you to determine what the density of a liquid is.
In 1860, he discovered the phenomenon of “critical temperature.”
Returning to Russia, Mendeleev realizes that his students simply do not have good textbooks, so he sits down to write one. And in the same 1861 he published his “Organic Chemistry”, for which he was awarded the Demidov Prize.
In 1869, he published his work “An Experiment on a System of Elements Based on Their Atomic Weight and Chemical Similarity,” during which he discovered the periodic law of chemical elements. This work immediately began to be translated into other languages. During the scientist’s lifetime, the book was republished only in Russia eight times, and five times abroad.
After the publication of the book, Mendeleev continued to develop his theory that each chemical element has its own place in the table, depending on how its properties are compared with the properties of other elements. Therefore, he made some amendments to the table - he changed the atomic masses of nine elements.
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
Only these three words are engraved on the scientist’s grave at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg. Although the scientist’s authority was enormous, and the number of his titles and titles was more than a hundred. He, an honorary member of almost all domestic and foreign scientific societies, academies and universities, signed his private and official correspondence only with his last name and first name. Rarely adding the word “professor.”
According to eyewitnesses, on the anniversary of the death of the great chemist, words were said at his grave that nothing more should be written on his monument, because that says it all. According to the scientist himself, in his life there were only three services to the Motherland: the general Russian pride in his work, his thousands of famous students increasing the glory of the fatherland, and service for the benefit of the development of Russian industry.
Aeronaut, metallurgist and economist
In 1874, he developed the equation of state of an ideal gas; 40 years earlier, another scientist, Clapeyron, began to study the basis of this law. Now this equation bears the name of both chemists.
In 1875, he created a mechanism that was amazing at that time - a stratospheric balloon, which could be used to fly into the lower layers of the atmosphere. Three years later, in Paris, Mendeleev himself ascended on a similar unit - the balloon of the French scientist Henri Giffard.
In 1887, he climbed alone in a hot air balloon to a height of several hundred meters to observe a solar eclipse. Observing the solar corona, in his opinion, should answer the question of how our world appeared. And he had been interested in this topic for a long time. For this flight, Mendeleev received a medal from the French Academy of Aerostatic Meteorology.
In 1890, Mendeleev had to leave the university - always on the side of the students, he brought a petition on their behalf to the Minister of Education. He did not accept her, and Mendeleev had to leave his teaching position.
For the next two years he helps develop smokeless powder.
In 1891 he co-authored the “Customs Tariff” in the Russian Empire.
In addition, Mendeleev is actively developing economic strategies for the country’s development. He insists on injecting foreign investment into the economy, but also stands on the side of the nationalization of the most important industrial points that affect economic indicators. So, for example, he proposed giving state-owned metallurgical plants to the Naval and Military Ministries, and the rest to private ownership in order to develop competition. As a result, he is appointed head of the Ural expedition to private mining plants in the region.
In 1893, he participated in the creation of the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures; in his new position as a scientist-custodian in this institution, he created the most accurate weighing methods at that time.
Mendeleev also actively participated in the project to build the icebreaker Ermak. The scientist believed that this would help explore the Arctic, which would have a positive impact on the development of the Russian economy.
Place of birth: Tobolsk
Activities and interests: chemistry, technology, economics, metrology, agrochemistry and agriculture, education, physical chemistry, solid state chemistry, solution theory, physics of liquids and gases, oil technology, instrument making, meteorology, aeronautics, shipbuilding, development of the Far North, pedagogy , bookbinding works, cardboard works
Biography Russian scientist-encyclopedist, author of fundamental works on chemistry, physics, chemical technology, metrology, aeronautics, meteorology, agriculture, economics, etc. Mendeleev's most famous discovery is the fundamental law of nature, the periodic law of chemical elements. He himself believed that his name was made up of “more than four subjects in total... the periodic law, the study of the elasticity of gases, the understanding of solutions as associations and the “Fundamentals of Chemistry.” The periodic law was discovered by him during his work on the “Fundamentals of Chemistry”. He studied solutions all his life, gradually understanding the nature of the chemical compound as such, and the Clapeyron-Mendeleev equation (the general equation of state of an ideal gas) is an important formula that establishes the relationship between pressure, molar volume and absolute temperature of an ideal gas. Throughout his life, he regularly participated in industrial enterprises, where theoretical scientific problems had more of an applied significance. In addition, he was interested in very diverse areas of activity, including aeronautics, shipbuilding and the development of the Far North. Mendeleev is the author of more than one and a half thousand works, including the classic “Fundamentals of Chemistry,” the first systematic presentation of inorganic chemistry (1869 - 1871). He enjoyed enormous scientific prestige throughout the world and was awarded many awards - Russian and foreign orders and medals, honorary membership in various Russian and foreign scientific societies, numerous scientific titles, etc.
Education, degrees and titles 1847−1849, Tobolsk Men's Gymnasium 1850−1855, St. Petersburg Main Pedagogical Institute 1856, St. Petersburg University: Master of Chemistry 1857, St. Petersburg University, Department of Chemistry: privat-docent 1865, St. Petersburg University , Faculty: Physics and Mathematics: Doctor of Science 1876, Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: Corresponding Member
Work 1855, Simferopol men's gymnasium: senior teacher of natural sciences 1855−1856, Gymnasium at the Richelieu Lyceum, Odessa, Ukraine 1857−1890, St. Petersburg University: professor of chemical technology (from 1865), professor of general chemistry (from 1867) 1859−1861 , Heidelberg University, Germany 1863−1872, St. Petersburg Institute of Technology: professor and head of the chemical laboratory 1879, Yaroslavl Oil Refinery (now named after D.I. Mendeleev): founder and chief technologist 1890−1893, Depot of exemplary weights and scales, St. Petersburg: scientist-guardian 1893, Main Chamber of Weights and Measures (now the All-Russian Research Institute of Metrology named after D.I. Mendeleev), St. Petersburg: manager 1893, Chemical Plant P.K. Ushkova (now named after L.Ya. Karpov) 1903, Kiev Polytechnic Institute: Chairman of the State Examination Commission
House 1834−1849, Tobolsk province, Tobolsk and village. Aremzyanskoye 1850−1855, St. Petersburg 1855, Simferopol 1855−1856, Odessa 1856−1857, St. Petersburg 1859−1861, Germany, Heidelberg and Bonn 1861−1865, St. Petersburg 1865−1906, Moscow region, Boblovo 1866− 1907, St. Petersburg
Facts from life • He was the last child in a large family of a high school director and heiress of a merchant family. Mendeleev's paternal grandfather bore the surname Sokolov, but the scientist's father Ivan Pavlovich was nicknamed Mendeleev because, as Dmitry Ivanovich later believed, “he exchanged something, like the neighboring landowner Mendeleev exchanged horses.” Mendeleev's mother Maria Dmitrievna came from an old family of Siberian merchants and industrialists and, in order to support the family, ran a glass factory for many years. In order for the future scientist to receive an education, his mother took him from Siberia to Moscow, from where he then went to St. Petersburg. Mendeleev was grateful to his mother all his life and dedicated his scientific works to her. • At the gymnasium where Mendeleev studied, Russian literature was taught by the future author of “The Little Humpbacked Horse,” poet P.P. Ershov. • In 1859, he advanced his studies in science in Heidelberg, where he studied the relationship between the chemical and physical properties of substances, studying the adhesive forces of particles based on data obtained by measuring capillarity (surface tension of liquids) at various temperatures. The laboratory of the German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg did not allow such delicate experiments, so Mendeleev had to create his own laboratory. • Studied in Bonn with the “famous glass maestro” Gessler, who created Mendeleev’s thermometers and instruments for measuring specific gravity. • In 1875−1876 he participated in the work of the commission to investigate mediumistic phenomena, and consistently exposed spiritualism. • In 1880 he was nominated as a full member of the Academy of Sciences, but was not elected. • Left St. Petersburg University after quarreling with the Minister of Education: during student unrest, he refused to accept a student petition from Mendeleev. • Participated in the development of technologies for the first Russian plant for the production of engine oils in the Yaroslavl province. • In 1892, he became the keeper of the Depot of Model Weights and Scales, which a year later, on the initiative of Mendeleev, was transformed into the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures. • In 1893 he worked at the chemical plant P.K. Ushkova on the production of pyrocollodion smokeless powder. • In 1899, he led the Ural expedition dedicated to the modernization of iron ore mining and its processing. • Formulated the main directions of economic development of Russia, strongly advocated protectionism and the expansion of foreign investment in Russian industry, and in 1891, together with S.Yu. Witte worked on the Customs Tariff. • In his works on economics, he promoted the development of the community and artel spirit and proposed reforming the community so that in the summer it would engage in agriculture and in the winter it would work in a community factory. • At the beginning of the 20th century, he calculated that by 2050 the population of Russia should reach 800 million people. • Works and appeals were signed by “D. Mendeleev" or "Professor Mendeleev", very rarely mentioning his honorary titles, which he had in abundance. • Around 1900, after the World Exhibition in Paris, he wrote the first article in Russian about synthetic fibers, “Viscose at the Paris Exhibition.” • Foreign scientists nominated Mendeleev for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times (in 1905, 1906 and 1907) for the discovery of the periodic law, which Mendeleev’s Russian colleagues never did. In 1905, Mendeleev was surpassed by the German chemist Adolf Bayer; in 1906 - Henri Moissan: at first the Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Mendeleev, but the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences objected. In 1907, it was planned to divide the prize between the Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro and Mendeleev, but Mendeleev died on February 2, 1907, without waiting for the committee's decision. Cannizzaro, however, did not receive the prize either. • The story that Mendeleev dreamed about the periodic table of elements is true, but not entirely true. He worked for a long time on its generalization and systematization, and one day, after working for three days, he lay down, dozed off and saw a table where the elements were arranged in the right order. It cannot be said that it was a vision from above - Mendeleev simply continued to think in his sleep. • There is a legend that Mendeleev was famous for the production of suitcases. He actually did bookbinding and cardboard work, he glued boxes for transporting papers himself and learned to do it quite skillfully, but, of course, not professionally, but he was popularly known as a “master of suitcases.” • The legend that Mendeleev invented vodka is pure legend. Mendeleev actually defended his dissertation “On the combination of alcohol with water,” but there is no mention of mixtures with a strength of 40° (or, according to another version, 38°). In 1895, when Mendeleev participated in meetings of the Witte Commission to find ways to streamline the production and trade circulation of drinks containing alcohol, vodka had already existed in Russia for many years. • All his life, Mendeleev was a consistent patriot and was deeply indignant at the fact that the discoveries of Russian scientists in Russia are valued lower than Western works. Towards the end of his life, his patriotism acquired somewhat extremist forms: in 1905, Mendeleev joined the Black Hundred Union of the Russian People. • Mendeleev's son-in-law was the Russian poet Alexander Blok, who was married to the scientist's daughter Lyubov. • There is such an anecdote: “One day Mendeleev came to the House of Weights and Measures in great irritation. He yelled at everyone, then sat down in a chair, smiled and said cheerfully: “That’s how I am in spirit today!” • Mendeleev defined his “three services to the Motherland” as follows: scientific activity, teaching and service to Russian industry. • The 101st chemical element, mendelevium, is named after Mendeleev, as well as a mineral, a lunar crater and an underwater mountain range. Since 1907, Mendeleev Congresses have been regularly held in Russia, devoted to a wide range of issues of general and applied chemistry, and since 1941, Mendeleev Readings have been held, where reports by Russian chemists, physicists, biologists and biochemists are read.
Discoveries • While working on the work “Fundamentals of Chemistry”, D.I. In February 1869, Mendeleev discovered one of the fundamental laws of nature - the periodic law of chemical elements, which allows not only to accurately determine many properties of already known elements, but also to predict the properties of those not yet discovered. While working on the periodic table, Mendeleev clarified the values of the atomic masses of nine elements, and also predicted the existence, atomic masses and properties of a number of elements discovered later (gallium, scandium, germanium, polonium, astatine, technetium and francium). Supplemented the table with group zero noble gases in 1900. In the 1850s, he studied the phenomena of isomorphism, which demonstrate the interdependence of the crystalline form and chemical composition of compounds, as well as the dependence of the properties of elements on their atomic volumes. • In 1859, Mendeleev designed a device for determining the density of liquids - a pycnometer. • In 1860, he discovered the absolute boiling point of liquids - the critical temperature at which the density and pressure of saturated vapor are maximum, and the density of the liquid in dynamic equilibrium with the steam is minimum. • In 1861 he published Organic Chemistry, the first Russian textbook on this discipline. • In 1865 - 1887 he formulated the hydration theory of solutions and developed ideas about compounds of variable composition. The foundations of Mendeleev’s teaching on solutions were laid in 1865 in his doctoral dissertation “On the combination of alcohol with water.” Subsequently, based on his theory, the theory of electrolyte solutions was formulated. • In 1868, he was one of the founders of the Russian Chemical Society, and in 1876 he initiated its official merger with the Russian Physical Society, as a result of which the Russian Physico-Chemical Society was formed in 1878. • In 1869 - 1971 he published “Fundamentals of Chemistry” - the first systematic presentation of inorganic chemistry. • In 1874, he found the general equation of state of an ideal gas (Clapeyron-Mendeleev equation), a special case of which is the dependence of the state of a gas on temperature, discovered by the French physicist Benoit Paul Emile Clapeyron in 1834. He also began to explore the properties of real gases. • In 1875, he developed a project for a stratospheric balloon with a pressurized gondola, capable of rising into the upper atmosphere, as well as a project for a controlled balloon with engines. • In 1877, he proposed the principle of fractional distillation in oil refining. He also suggested the origin of oil from heavy metal carbides - a hypothesis that is not currently supported by scientists. • In 1880 he proposed the idea of underground gasification of coal. • Promoted the use of mineral fertilizers, irrigation of arid lands, expansion of infrastructure (including in the Urals) and other progressive measures to promote the development of agriculture and industry. • In 1890 - 1892, together with I.M. Cheltsov developed pyrocollodion smokeless gunpowder. • On the basis of the Depot of standard weights and scales, in 1893 he created the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures (now the All-Russian Research Institute of Metrology named after D.I. Mendeleev), and in 1901 - the first calibration tent in Ukraine, which verified trade measures and scales, and subsequently became the Kharkov Institute of Metrology; This is where the history of metrology and standardization in Ukraine began. • Contributed to the legalization of the basic measures of length and weight (arshin and pound). • Created an accurate theory of scales, developed the best designs of the rocker and arrester. • In 1901 - 1902, he designed an Arctic expeditionary icebreaker and developed a high-latitude “industrial” sea route along which ships could pass near the North Pole.
Last years of life and death
In 1901, with his help, a calibration chamber was created in Kharkov to measure the accuracy of weights and measures.
Mendeleev also participated in the chemicalization of agriculture and was interested in issues of oil and gas processing.
Since 1905, Mendeleev has been nominated for the Nobel Prize three times. Why did our foreign colleagues do this? In 1906, the prize committee awarded the victory to Mendeleev, but the Swedish Academy of Sciences did not approve this decision.
In 1907, it was decided to divide the prize between Mendeleev and his French colleague Moussant, who discovered fluorine. But Dmitry Mendeleev did not live to see the presentation.
The scientist died of pneumonia on February 2, 1907 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery on Literary Mostki.
"Russian standard vodka" and Mendeleev
The scientist’s doctoral dissertation was called “Discourses on the combination of alcohol with water,” and there is not a word about vodka in it. It talks about the proportions of alcohol and water at which the maximum reduction in volume of the two liquids occurs. And it just so happened that the combination is 46 degrees. And forty-proof vodka appeared in Russia when the scientist was only 9 years old. In 1843, the Russian government introduced a rule on the minimum threshold of alcohol in vodka at 40 degrees “plus or minus” 2. This is how Russia fought with a diluted product. They also said that Dmitry Mendeleev made counterfeit French cognacs and wines for the merchant Eliseev, the alcohol magnate of Russia.
Interesting Facts
- Mendeleev loved to bind books, glue frames for portraits, and also make suitcases. In St. Petersburg and Moscow he was known as the best suitcase maker in Russia.
- Mendeleev came up with the idea of using a pipeline to pump oil.
- In fact, Mendeleev was not the first to create the periodic table of the elements, nor was he the first to suggest the periodicity of the chemical properties of elements. Mendeleev's achievement was the determination of periodicity and, on its basis, the compilation of a table of elements. The scientist left empty cells for elements not yet discovered.
- The chemical element mendelevium is named after Mendeleev. Produced artificially in 1955, the element was named after the chemist.
- Mendeleev loved music. His friends even nicknamed him “Leonora” because he often hummed the overture from Beethoven’s opera “Leonora.”
- In the 90s of the 19th century, D.I. Mendeleev was elected a member of the Council of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He loved painting, even published reviews of paintings.
- In 1894, Mendeleev received an invitation from Cambridge and Oxford, where he was awarded a doctorate (in Edinburgh, he received it earlier). Doctoral degrees in Cambridge and Oxford are given as an exception - these are universities of opposite directions. One who receives a doctorate at Cambridge does not receive it at Oxford, and vice versa. Mendeleev received both. D.I. Mendeleev was the first Russian scientist to receive a doctorate from Cambridge.
Industrial espionage and the luminary of Russian chemistry
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev had to become a spy at the request of the Minister of Navy Nikolai Chikhachev in 1890. At that time, the issue of producing smokeless gunpowder, which was used in European countries, was important for imperial Russia. And the scientist ordered reports on railway transportation in Britain, Germany and France, analyzed supplies to gunpowder factories, and within a week gave the minister the proportions of two options for smokeless gunpowder for Russia. "Mendeleev's gunpowder", not patented in time by the Russian government, was intercepted by the Americans. And in 1914, Russia bought tons of it in America for gold, and the producers grinned, selling to the Russians “a Russian product - pyrocollodium.”
