Mendeleyev, Dmitry

Mendeleyev, Dmitry (Ivanovich)

  Mendeleyev also spelled Mendeleev

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev.

(credit: Oxford Science Archive/Heritage-Images)

(born Feb. 8, 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russia—died Feb. 2, 1907, St. Petersburg) Russian chemist. He was a professor of chemistry at the University of St. Petersburg (1867–90) and later served as director of Russia's bureau of weights and measures. He made a fundamental contribution to chemistry by announcing in 1869 the principle of periodicity of properties in the chemical elements. His periodic table was based on this principle, arranging the elements in ascending order of atomic weight and grouping them by similarity of properties. Mendeleyev's theory allowed him to predict the existence and atomic weights of several elements not discovered until years later.