1834-1907

Russian Chemist

Dmitri Mendeleyev is best known for his development of the periodic table of the elements. His table is based on the patterns he observed when the elements are organized by increasing atomic weight. Using his table, he was able to accurately predict properties of previously unknown elements.

Mendeleyev was born in 1834 in Tobolsk, Russia. His father was a teacher who died by the time Dmitri was a teenager, and his mother opened a glass factory in order to support the large family. When Dmitri was old enough for college, his mother traveled with him across Russia to St. Petersburg, a journey of thousands of kilometers that they took largely on foot. There, in 1850, he enrolled in the Institute of Pedagogy to be educated as a teacher.

After graduating Mendeleyev continued his education at the University of St. Petersburg. He received an...