Question: When Dmitri Mendeleev Created Mendeleevium during the late 1800s. Did he also create the periodic table and not just 1 element?

Emily Robinson answered on 12 Jun 2011:

Hi jackboothexplodes,

Ok I am also not a chemist (and chemistry was never one of my strongest subjects) but this is how I understood it… Dmitri Mendeleev was interested in the known elements (approx 56 at the time) and he wanted to sort them into a table using their characteristics and proporties. When he did this he realised there were some patterns appearing of how the chemicals related to each other. Therefore he was very bold and decided to leave some spaces in his table where he predicted other elements should exist due to the pattern. Some people criticized him for ‘guessing’ like this as they thought he was wrong, but I think most things he actually got right! He is credited with being the creator of the periodic table.

When the synthetic element mendelevium was created in 1955 it was named after Dmitri Mendeleev as a tribute to his work.

I think it is amazing that he was able to predict elements that people didn’t even know should exist, this in not my area of science but it really makes me amazed at the idea that he came up with this in 1869!

I watched this great BBC programme called Chemistry – A Volatile History which I think you can still watch online

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/chemistry-volatile-history/

I hope this helps! 😀