Karnovich latest work. Evgeny Petrovich Karnovich biography

In the spring of 1861 Dmitry Ivanovich returned to St. Petersburg. Even in a foreign land, news reached him that the peasant reform had been completed. The so-called "liberation of the peasants" was proclaimed by the manifesto on February 19, and thus the matter, which had been prepared for many years in the commissions, caused a fierce struggle around itself, the interested parties - the peasantry, who rebelled in all corners of Russia, the noble landlord class, who saw in serfdom the economic stronghold of their existence, a growing commercial and industrial existence, in need of a "free" labor market, and therefore striving for the legal freedom of the peasant - this matter, it seemed, was finally getting its resolution. All this social upsurge was so unusual for Russia that Dmitry Ivanovich did not recognize his homeland. He left the country, which had not yet shaken off the Nikolaev reaction, and returned to the society of people sensitively living in public interests, listening to the development of social and scientific life West. Dmitry Ivanovich immediately enthusiastically took up the studies interrupted for two years at the university. Again he took the chair of organic chemistry he had left. In addition to the university, Dmitry Ivanovich took up teaching chemistry in the cadet corps and lecturing at the Engineering School and the Institute of Communications. The mood of the liberal strata of Russian society was transmitted to him, he, like everyone else, strove to work, work and work. Under such a slogan, the 60s began in Russia, this is how Mendeleev lived together with the country. In the process of teaching, he was faced with the lack of a more or less coherent textbook of organic chemistry, which took into account the latest discoveries in the field of this science. This led Dmitry Ivanovich to the idea of ​​writing his own textbook. "Organic Chemistry".
"This book is divided into a few chapters, intended for the development of one or another chemical concept from the materials given in it, and in general was supposed to serve as a preliminary acquaintance with the subject of lectures." In this book, the author managed: "in particular, not to forget the general, in the pursuit of facts, not to ignore the ideas that inspire them, not to deprive the sciences of nature of their philosophical significance." First of all, Dmitrii Ivanovich bases his exposition on the harmoniously and consistently developed doctrine of limits, and around this basic principle he groups and unites all the factual material of organic chemistry, which was already very extensive at that time.
"Organic chemistry" Mendeleev caused controversy among chemists, not everyone agreed with the method used by Dmitry Ivanovich when writing it. In addition to developing the doctrine of limits, he tried to resist the current in organic chemistry, which later led to the emergence of a new branch of science, now called "stereochemistry" or "the study of the spatial distribution of atoms when they form particles. chemical compounds". Nevertheless, Mendeleev's book was such a significant phenomenon that it was awarded a large Demidov Prize. In the same 1861, along with the textbook, his article appeared: "On the Limits of Organic Compounds." But any research work the lack of a good laboratory at the university was very hampering. With his return to St. Petersburg, Dmitri Ivanovna again began an intense activity, outside of which he did not feel himself living. One of the things that interested him most was the upcoming change in the university charter. A new statute was published in 1863 and classes began regularly. The Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University elected Dmitry Ivanovich as an extraordinary professor in the department of technology. Mendeleev, despite his young years (he was 29 years old by 1863), was considered in scientific circles as a serious authority not only in pure chemistry, but also in technology. He was assigned to edit "Technology according to Wagner", in addition, he has already published several of his articles on technology, of which the most interesting is "Optical saccharometry". The opinion of scientists was of little concern to the government: the Ministry of Public Education did not approve the election of Dmitry Ivanovich, formally explaining this by the fact that he did not have a master's degree in technology. Nevertheless, Dmitry Ivanovich continued his work on technology, not thinking of science without practical application her to the point. “Having grown up near a glass factory,” Mendeleev later wrote, “which was led by my mother, thereby supporting the children left in her arms, from an early age I took a closer look at the factory business and got used to understanding that it was one of the people’s breadwinners, even in the Siberian expanse, therefore surrendering to such an abstract and real science as chemistry, from a young age I was interested in factory enterprises ... " Having become interested in the issue of the origin of oil and its development in Russia, Dmitry Ivanovich undertook in 1863 journey to the Baku oil fields. We have to say "journey", because getting to Baku did not mean then taking a train in St. Petersburg and getting off it in Baku. Railway I didn’t get there, there were no decent highways either.

Off-road impeded the development of the oil industry in Russia. The oil business was dominated by a system of payoffs, which led to completely predatory development. Due to the lack of good roads and large oil storage facilities, a lot of oil was wasted. There was almost no manufacturing industry, oil was used only as a fuel. As a result of the inspection of the Baku fields, Dmitry Ivanovich recommended to the well-known oilman Kokorev the most radical measures for the development of the business in those conditions - the construction of a giant oil pipeline from Baku to the Black Sea and the construction of ships with tanks for loading oil. This trip to Baku was the first realization of that interest in the oil industry, which did not leave Dmitry Ivanovich all his life. Dmitry Ivanovich’s work on technology distinguished him so much from other associate professors of the university and his scientific weight as a chemist increased so much that the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, bypassing the slingshots set by the Ministry of Public Education, invited Mendeleev in 1864 to a professorship. While teaching at the institute, Dmitry Ivanovich intensively prepared for his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Chemistry. This dissertation, "On the Combination of Alcohol with Water," read by him in 1865, is a very significant phenomenon in the chemistry of solutions.

"Dmitry Ivanovich from the very beginning joined the number of supporters of the theory of solutions, known in science under the name of hydrate or chemical. In its most general form, the essence of this theory, which arose a very long time ago, and even in the 18th century had a large number of defenders among the most prominent chemists of that time, lies in the fact that the dissolved body does not form a simple homogeneous mixture with the solvent, but enters into chemical interaction with it.When the law of constant proportions was established, to which the solutions clearly did not obey, then following the thought of Berthollet, but subjecting it to an appropriate limitation, they began to look at solutions, as a special type of chemical compounds, as indefinite compounds. There were especially many supporters of this view during the first half of the 19th century. Mendeleev at one time, however, with some reservations, adjoined this view. However, already in his doctoral dissertation, he writes: "There are reasons to think that the basic law of shares, which manifests itself not only in the moment of formation of new definite compounds, but having its own significance for the state of chemical equilibrium, that this law also takes part in the formation of even such characteristic indefinite compounds as solutions. One of the main reasons for this is the long-held opinion that during the formation of solutions biggest change in properties occurs with a joint ratio between the quantities of substances that make up the solution. "Dmitry Ivanovich found such a coincidence between the joint ratios and the maximum compression for the alcohol-water system" . A brilliantly completed dissertation made it possible for Dmitry Ivanovich to return to the university and no longer as an associate professor, but as an extraordinary professor of technical chemistry. At the end of 1865, he was approved as an ordinary professor in the same department. A little earlier, Dmitry Ivanovich bought a small estate. He bought it in half with Professor Ilyin of the Technological Institute, paying 8,000 rubles for his part, which he paid out gradually, partly from fees for scientific works, partly from the professor's salary. The estate used to belong to Prince Dadyani, who went bankrupt after the destruction of serfdom. First, the estate passed to the treasury, then to some private person. Dmitry Ivanovich and Ilyin Boblovo were bought from him.

Estate in Boblovo

The estate stood on the top of the Boblovskaya mountain in the park. Two alleys led to it: on one side, elm, on the other, birch. In front of the house there was an orchard and a beautiful flower garden, laid out by the former owner of Boblov. Hot dedication to the cause was the main property of Dmitry Ivanovich, he was fond of agriculture on a par with all his other works, and he was fond of not amateurishly, but with all seriousness and responsibility: he contacted the Imperial Free Economic Society, and organized one of the four experimental fields in all of Russia with himself on the estate.
Dmitry Ivanovich carefully recorded the results of his summer experiments and regularly published either in the Proceedings of the Imperial Free Economic Society or as a separate publication. In winter, returning to St. Petersburg, he completely immersed himself in university affairs and a chemical laboratory. The beginning of his professorship includes editing the Technical Encyclopedia, where a number of articles are written by himself, and translating "Analytical Chemistry" Gerard and Chancel. In 1867, the World Exhibition opened in Paris, where almost all countries of the world were represented. Dmitry Ivanovich visited the exhibition. The result of this visit was an extensive monograph by Mendeleev "Review of the Paris World's Fair in 1867.", where, along with the review, Dmitry Ivanovich expressed many practical considerations about Russian industry, which showed especially clearly its backwardness in comparison with industrialized countries. One of the parts of the "Overview" - "About modern development some chemical industries" - mainly concerns the oil business and implements the thoughts that Dmitry Ivanovich had when he visited the oil fields in Baku. Dmitry Ivanovich's trip to Paris could not completely fit into the "Overview" - he was a man of too versatile interests, too active to, having gone around the exhibition and writing a monograph, calm down on this.On the trip, he was faced with a very important issue - the isolation of Russia in measures and weights.All of Europe except England had long used the metric system, while in Russia the arshin and the pound firmly reigned. The government did not consider it politically expedient to transfer backward Russia to the metric system.Dmitry Ivanovich only had to make a "statement on the metric system" at the First Congress of Russian Naturalists in the Department of Physics and Chemistry, which took place at the end of 1867 and the beginning of 1868.
Dmitry Ivanovich's lectures were not distinguished by outward brilliance, but the whole university gathered to listen to them, they were so deep and fascinating. "In his lectures, Mendeleev, as it were, led the listener, forcing him to follow that difficult and tedious path that leads from the raw factual material of science to true knowledge of nature, to its laws; he made him feel that generalizations in science are given only at the cost of hard work , and the more clearly the final conclusions appeared before the audience.
University for Dmitry Ivanovich was the most important thing in life, it was the place where you can realize your hard work, passing it on to students. The university was a "temple" for Mendeleev, he brought to this temple all his wealth - his knowledge, pursuing one task: "To lure as many Russian forces as possible into science."

Russia of the 19th century, not only in chemistry, put forward a number of names on the world stage. A galaxy of young scientists in some twenty or thirty years raised Russian science to the level of European. Struve - in astronomy, Pirogov - in medicine, Lobachevsky - in mathematics, Sechenov - in physiology - all these names have become known and valuable to the whole world. And among them, the thick-set figure of the Siberian Mendeleev stands out uniquely. Over time, Dmitry Ivanovich became more and more accustomed to the university. Domestic circumstances also contributed to this: together with the department, Dmitry Ivanovich received a spacious professorial apartment at the university. Thanks to this, he had the opportunity to be closer to the laboratory, which he needed in his work.
As for the first time, when teaching organic chemistry, twenty-year-old Associate Professor Mendeleev was faced with the lack of a textbook, so now, a mature professor, for the same reason, decided to write a course in general chemistry. "Fundamentals of Chemistry"- such was the name of the conceived work, which became an era not only in creative destiny D. I. Mendeleev, but also in the history of the development of chemistry.

The result of his pedagogical experience, the course of lectures he gave, was put by Dmitry Ivanovich as the basis of the undertaking. But, putting his lecture notes in order, systematizing the material, clarifying his understanding of chemical phenomena, he moved close to the work, the result of which was the creation of the periodic law. In the preface to one of the editions of Fundamentals of Chemistry, Dmitry Ivanovich explains on the basis of what thought he found and stubbornly defend the periodic law: “Having devoted my energies to the study of matter, I see in it two such signs: mass, which occupies space and manifests itself in extension, and most clearly and most realistically in weight, and individuality, expressed in chemical transformations, and most clearly formulated in the concept of chemical elements. When thinking about matter, in addition to any idea of ​​material atoms, two questions cannot be avoided for me: how much and what kind of substance is given, to which the concepts correspond - masses and chemical elements. The history of the science that concerns matter, i.e., chemistry, leads willy-nilly to the requirement to recognize not only the eternity of the mass of matter, but also the eternity of chemical elements. Therefore, the idea involuntarily arises that there must be a connection between mass and chemical elements, and since the mass of matter, although not absolute, but only relative, is finally expressed in the form of atoms, it is necessary to look for a functional correspondence between the individual properties of elements and their atomic weights. It is impossible to look for something, at least mushrooms, or any kind of addiction, except by looking and trying. So I began to select, writing on separate cards the elements with their atomic weights and fundamental properties, similar elements and low atomic weights, which quickly led to the conclusion that the properties of elements are in a periodic dependence on their atomic weight, moreover, doubting many ambiguities, I did not doubt for a minute the generality of the conclusion drawn, since it was impossible to admit randomness " . About the properties of the elements, Dmitry Ivanovich says this: "The elements have an exact, measurable and beyond doubt that property, which is expressed in their atomic weight. Its value shows the relative mass of the atom, or, if you avoid the concept of an atom, its value shows the ratio between the masses that make up chemical independent individuals or elements And according to the meaning of all exact information about the phenomena of nature, the mass of a substance is just such a property of it, on which all other properties must depend, because they are all determined by similar conditions or by the same forces that act in the weight of a body, which is directly proportional to the mass of the substance. Therefore, it is closest or most natural to look for relationships between the properties of the elements, on the one hand, and their atomic weights, on the other." Thus, "the essence of the concepts that cause the periodic law lies in the general physical and chemical principle of correspondence, convertibility and equivalence of the forces of nature. Gravity, attraction at close distances and many other phenomena are directly dependent on the mass of a substance. One cannot think that chemical forces do not depend on the mass. The dependence appears because the properties of simple and complex bodies are determined by the masses of the atoms of their constituents". The days of March 6, 1869 and December 3, 1870 will remain unforgettable in the history of chemistry. In the first of them, the clerk of the Russian physico- chemical society Professor N. A. Menshutkin, in the absence of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, made a report: "An experience of a system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical affinity". In fact, it has only been an experience so far. The system did not claim to be complete. There was only an idea significant, big, but still insufficiently developed. It was more of another contribution to the classification of the elements than a law. Dmitry Ivanovich's first experiment suffered from many shortcomings of previous studies, and yet there was already something in common from which one could proceed in the future: "all properties of elements and their compounds change depending on changes in their atomic weights." In the process of further work, Dmitry Ivanovich found out that the properties do not change in the same way as atomic weights, that is, they do not increase continuously from the first element to the last, but after some increase they decrease again. Such a fluctuation appears evenly, periodically among the elements arranged in order of their atomic weight. Based on this, Dmitry Ivanovich derived the periodic law. He finally formulated it on December 3, 1870 as follows: "The properties of simple bodies, as well as the forms and properties of compounds of elements, are in a periodic dependence on the magnitude of the atomic weights of the elements."
"Pointing to the periodicity in changes in the properties of the elements, D. I. Mendeleev gave them the appropriate arrangement: he placed them in horizontal rows according to the atomic weight, and at the same time, the elements in which the properties are repeated, signed under those to which they are getting closer , so that in addition to the horizontal rows, vertical groups were formed, containing the analogies closest in similarity in properties. From this arrangement, the so-called periodic system of chemical elements was obtained. In the finally established periodic system, there were several unoccupied places. This was explained by the fact that not all elements were known to science. Dmitry Ivanovich, pointing to these gaps in the system, predicted the existence of three of them and theoretically derived all their properties, believing that they are average between the nearest elements. The unknown elements were named by him: eka-boron, eka-aluminum, eka-silicon. Despite the fact that in science Mendeleev's discovery was rated as world-class, many foreign scientists did not pay due attention to it, and in Germany this discovery was even attributed to the famous German chemist Lothar Meyer, and not to Mendeleev at all. In 1867, Meyer's book "Die modern Teorien der Chemie" appeared, which was a summary of the work of other authors: the book contains a table of 28 elements, also borrowed from other authors, and not compiled by Meyer. In 1870, his work appeared, marked December 1869 "The nature of the chemical elements as a function of their atomic weights." About Mendeleev, he says there: “Recently, Mendeleev showed that such a system is obtained by inscribing atomic weights in order without arbitrary choice, decomposing this chain into sections and attaching them to each other in an unchanged order. The following table is identical in its main idea with the table, given by Mendeleev. And yet, despite Meyer's own recognition of Mendeleev's scientific priority in creating the final system of elements, and despite the fact that Meyer's main provisions are much more limited than Mendeleev's, for a long time German science, and after it European science, was considered the creator of Meyer's "Periodic Law". And only after the discovery of the elements predicted by Dmitry Ivanovich (Meyer ridiculed this prediction in his time), the glory of the creator of the Periodic Law completely began to belong to Mendeleev. Selflessness was one of the qualities of Dmitry Ivanovich: he was very little embarrassed by the story with Meyer. For him, the main thing was to enrich science with a discovery, and it does not matter at all who will reap the glory of this discovery. This was not the first time he showed such disinterestedness - for example, the pycnometer invented by him in his youth only bore his name in Russia. Among Russian scientists, the recognition of Mendeleev's discovery was more amicable, but even there it was not without intrigue, which significantly delayed the recognition of the West. Dmitry Ivanovich commissioned the first translation of the exposition of his system into German Petersburg professor of chemistry Beilstein. He entrusted the translation to his laboratory assistant Ferman, who performed it with an understandable to everyone in this case special care, "Meanwhile, the text of Dmitry Ivanovich's provisions placed in the German press turned out to be inconsistent with the exact meaning of the original provisions of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev. At the same time, A. A. Ferman reported one more very curious detail: Beilstein, having received a translation from him, himself sent it abroad and addressed it to Lothar Meyer with instructions to put it in a magazine. All this looked like, if not a direct intrigue, then a great carelessness and carelessness in relation to the author. Simultaneously with the work on the creation of the "Periodic Law" Dmitry Ivanovich tirelessly worked on a huge work - "Fundamentals of Chemistry". This work appeared in the first edition in 1869. It alone was enough to widely glorify and immortalize the name of its creator. "Fundamentals of Chemistry"- First of all, a university course for students of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. The text is in large and small print. Large - main, small - notes. Basic - laws, conclusions, scientific statements, notes - comments to them, containing the most valuable information. Such a construction of the book is explained by the concern of a great teacher who does not want to clutter up the main meaning of science in the minds of young people. In the preface, he wrote about this: "Knowledge of conclusions without knowledge of the methods of their achievement can easily lead to error not only in the philosophical, but also in the practical side of the sciences, because then it is inevitably necessary to attach absolute significance to what is often relative and temporary." But here is an assessment of the Fundamentals of Chemistry given by another scientist: " Fundamentals of Chemistry" were created on the foundation of the first cycle of lectures given by Dmitry Ivanovich until 1869. He revised each subsequent edition of the book almost anew, investing all the accumulated pedagogical experience. All his life he returned to this work, which did not lose its significance over time. Multiple transfers to foreign languages expanded its success far beyond Russia. For Russian science, however, it was a scientific work on which numerous generations of chemistry students were brought up. Its re-edition today proves that even now the development of science has not crossed out the significance of Mendeleev's Fundamentals of Chemistry. Neither the growing fame, nor the intrigues around the discovery of the periodic law knocked Dmitry Ivanovich out of his working rut. Along with scientific works and reading a course at the university, he takes on a new load - lecturing at the Higher Women's Courses. That was the time when, for a significant part of Russian educated society, ideas about female students and nihilists still merged into a common unattractive image of the "blue stocking". Even the most cultured stratum of society - professors, often spoke out against women's education. Perhaps the memory of energetic Siberians, of his own mother, never allowed Dmitri Ivanovich to join the camp of conservatives in this matter. From the very first steps of the young business - women's education - he himself becomes a figure, carrying out the creation of the Vladimir Women's Courses. No considerations of employment made him shy away from the new chair.

The periodic law was discovered by D.I. Mendeleev while working on the text of the textbook "Fundamentals of Chemistry", when he encountered difficulties in systematizing the factual material. By mid-February 1869, pondering the structure of the textbook, the scientist gradually came to the conclusion that the properties simple substances and the atomic masses of the elements are connected by a certain regularity.

The discovery of the periodic table of elements was not made by chance, it was the result of a huge work, long and painstaking work, which was spent both by Dmitry Ivanovich himself and by many chemists from among his predecessors and contemporaries. “When I began to finalize my classification of the elements, I wrote on separate cards each element and its compounds, and then, arranging them in the order of groups and rows, I received the first visual table of the periodic law. But this was only the final chord, the result of all previous work ... "- said the scientist. Mendeleev emphasized that his discovery was the result that completed twenty years of thinking about the relationships between elements, thinking from all sides of the relationship of elements.

On February 17 (March 1), the manuscript of the article, containing a table entitled "An experiment on a system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical similarity," was completed and submitted for printing with notes for compositors and with the date "February 17, 1869." The report on the discovery of Mendeleev was made by the editor of the Russian Chemical Society, Professor N.A. Menshutkin at a meeting of the society on February 22 (March 6), 1869. Mendeleev himself was not present at the meeting, since at that time, on the instructions of the Free Economic Society, he examined the cheese factories of the Tver and Novgorod provinces.

In the first version of the system, the elements were arranged by scientists in nineteen horizontal rows and six vertical columns. On February 17 (March 1), the discovery of the periodic law was by no means completed, but only began. Dmitry Ivanovich continued its development and deepening for almost three more years. In 1870, Mendeleev published the second version of the system (The Natural System of Elements) in Fundamentals of Chemistry: horizontal columns of analogous elements turned into eight vertically arranged groups; the six vertical columns of the first version turned into periods beginning with an alkali metal and ending with a halogen. Each period was divided into two rows; elements of different rows included in the group formed subgroups.

The essence of Mendeleev's discovery was that with an increase in the atomic mass of chemical elements, their properties do not change monotonously, but periodically. After a certain number of elements of different properties, arranged in ascending atomic weight, the properties begin to repeat. The difference between Mendeleev's work and the works of his predecessors was that Mendeleev had not one, but two bases for classifying elements - atomic mass and chemical similarity. In order for the periodicity to be fully respected, Mendeleev corrected the atomic masses of some elements, placed several elements in his system contrary to the then accepted ideas about their similarity with others, left empty cells in the table where elements that were not yet discovered should have been placed.

In 1871, on the basis of these works, Mendeleev formulated the Periodic Law, the form of which was somewhat improved over time.

The Periodic Table of the Elements had a great influence on the subsequent development of chemistry. Not only was it the first natural classification of the chemical elements, which showed that they form a coherent system and are in close connection with each other, but it was also a powerful tool for further research. At the time when Mendeleev compiled his table on the basis of the periodic law discovered by him, many elements were not yet known. Over the next 15 years, Mendeleev's predictions were brilliantly confirmed; all three expected elements were discovered (Ga, Sc, Ge), which was the greatest triumph of the periodic law.

ARTICLE "MENDELEEV"

Mendeleev (Dmitry Ivanovich) - prof., b. in Tobolsk, January 27, 1834). His father, Ivan Pavlovich, director of the Tobolsk gymnasium, soon became blind and died. Mendeleev, a ten-year-old boy, remained in the care of his mother, Maria Dmitrievna, nee Kornilyeva, a woman of an outstanding mind and enjoyed general respect in the local intelligentsia society. M.'s childhood and high school years are spent in an environment conducive to the formation of an original and independent character: her mother was a supporter of the free awakening of her natural vocation. Love for reading and studying was clearly expressed in M. only at the end of the gymnasium course, when the mother, deciding to send her son to science, took him as a 15-year-old boy from Siberia, first to Moscow, and then a year later to St. Petersburg, where she placed him in a pedagogical institute… A real, all-consuming study of all branches of positive science began at the institute… At the end of the course at the institute, due to poor health, he left for the Crimea and was assigned as a gymnasium teacher, first in Simferopol, then in Odessa. But already in 1856. he again returned to St. Petersburg, entered as a Privatdozent in St. Petersburg. univ. and defended his dissertation "On specific volumes", for a master's degree in chemistry and physics ... In 1859, M. was sent abroad ... In 1861, M. again became a privatdozent in St. Petersburg. university. Soon after, he published the course "Organic Chemistry" and the article "On the Limit of СnН2n+ Hydrocarbons". In 1863, Mr.. M. was appointed professor of St. Petersburg. Technological Institute and for several years dealt with technical issues a lot: he traveled to the Caucasus to study oil near Baku, made agricultural experiments Imp. Free Economic Society, published technical manuals, etc. In 1865, he studied alcohol solutions according to their specific gravity, which served as the subject of his doctoral dissertation, which he defended the following year. Professor of St. Petersburg. univ. in the Department of Chemistry, M. was elected and appointed in 1866. Since then, his scientific activity has taken on such dimensions and diversity that in a brief essay it is possible to point out only the most important works. In 1868 - 1870. he writes his Fundamentals of Chemistry, where for the first time the principle of his periodic system of elements is carried out, which made it possible to foresee the existence of new, yet undiscovered elements and to accurately predict the properties of both themselves and their various compounds. In 1871 - 1875. engaged in the study of elasticity and expansion of gases and publishes his essay "On the elasticity of gases". In 1876, on behalf of the government, he went to Pennsylvania to inspect American oil fields and then several times to the Caucasus to study the economic conditions of oil production and the conditions for oil production, which led to the widespread development of the oil industry in Russia; he himself is engaged in the study of petroleum hydrocarbons, publishes several essays about everything and analyzes the issue of the origin of oil in them. Around the same time, he dealt with issues related to aeronautics and the resistance of liquids, accompanying his studies with the publication of separate works. In the 80s. he again turns to the study of solutions, which resulted in Op. "Investigation of aqueous solutions by specific gravity", the conclusions of which found so many followers among chemists of all countries. In 1887, during a total solar eclipse, he rises alone in a balloon in Klin, himself makes a risky adjustment of the valves, makes the ball obedient and enters into the annals of this phenomenon everything that he managed to notice. In 1888 he studies on the spot economic conditions Donetsk coal region. In 1890, Mr.. M. stopped reading his course in inorganic chemistry in St. Petersburg. university. Other extensive economic and state tasks from that time began to especially occupy him. Appointed as a member of the Council of Trade and Manufactories, he takes an active part in the development and systematic implementation of a tariff that is patronizing for the Russian manufacturing industry and publishes the essay "Explanatory Tariff of 1890", interpreting in all respects why Russia needed such patronage. At the same time, he was involved by the military and naval ministries in the question of re-equipping the Russian army and navy to develop a type of smokeless powder, and after a trip to England and France, which then already had their own gunpowder, he was appointed in 1891 as a consultant to the manager of the naval ministry on powder issues and, working together with employees (his former students) in the scientific and technical laboratory of the naval department, opened specifically for the purpose of studying the aforementioned issue, already at the very beginning of 1892 he indicated the required type of smokeless powder, called pyrocollodic, universal and easily adaptable to any firearms. With the opening of the Chamber of Weights and Measures in the Ministry of Finance, in 1893, it is determined in it by the scientific custodian of measures and weights and begins the publication of the Vremennik, in which all measurement studies carried out in the chamber are published. Sensitive and responsive to all scientific issues of paramount importance, M. was also keenly interested in other phenomena of current Russian social life, and wherever possible, he said his word ... Since 1880, he began to be interested in the art world, especially Russian, collects art collections and etc., and in 1894 he was elected a full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts ... The various scientific issues of paramount importance that were the subject of M.'s study, due to their multiplicity, cannot be listed here. He wrote up to 140 works, articles and books. But time to evaluate historical significance these works have not yet come, and M., we hope, will not stop researching and expressing his powerful word on newly emerging issues, both science and life, for a long time to come ...

RUSSIAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

The Russian Chemical Society is a scientific organization founded at St. Petersburg University in 1868 and was a voluntary association of Russian chemists.

The need to create the Society was announced at the 1st Congress of Russian Naturalists and Doctors, held in St. Petersburg in late December 1867 - early January 1868. At the Congress, the decision of the participants in the Chemical Section was announced:

The Chemistry Section declared a unanimous desire to unite in the Chemical Society for the communication of the already established forces of Russian chemists. The section believes that this society will have members in all cities of Russia, and that its publication will include the works of all Russian chemists, printed in Russian.

By this time, chemical societies had already been established in several European countries: the London Chemical Society (1841), the Chemical Society of France (1857), the German Chemical Society (1867); The American Chemical Society was founded in 1876.

The Charter of the Russian Chemical Society, compiled mainly by D.I. Mendeleev, was approved by the Ministry of Public Education on October 26, 1868, and the first meeting of the Society was held on November 6, 1868. Initially, it included 35 chemists from St. Petersburg, Kazan, Moscow, Warsaw, Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa. In the first year of its existence, the RCS grew from 35 to 60 members and continued to grow smoothly in subsequent years (129 in 1879, 237 in 1889, 293 in 1899, 364 in 1909, 565 in in 1917).

In 1869, the Russian Chemical Society got its own printed organ - the Journal of the Russian Chemical Society (ZhRHO); the magazine was published 9 times a year (monthly, except for the summer months).

In 1878, the RCS merged with the Russian Physical Society (founded in 1872) to form the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. The first Presidents of RFHO were A.M. Butlerov (in 1878-1882) and D.I. Mendeleev (in 1883-1887). In connection with the merger, in 1879 (from the 11th volume) the Journal of the Russian Chemical Society was renamed into the Journal of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. The periodicity of the publication was 10 issues per year; The journal consisted of two parts - chemical (ZhRHO) and physical (ZhRFO).

For the first time, many works of the classics of Russian chemistry were published on the pages of the ZhRHO. The works of D.I. Mendeleev on the creation and development of the periodic system of elements and A.M. Butlerov, related to the development of his theory of the structure of organic compounds ... During the period from 1869 to 1930, 5067 original chemical studies were published in the ZhRHO, abstracts and review articles were also published on certain issues of chemistry, translations of the most interesting works from foreign magazines.

RFHO became the founder of the Mendeleev Congresses on General and Applied Chemistry; the first three congresses were held in St. Petersburg in 1907, 1911 and 1922. In 1919, the publication of the ZhRFKhO was suspended and resumed only in 1924.

The UN General Assembly has declared 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. This is due to the fact that this year marks the 150th anniversary of its first version, created by the outstanding Russian chemist D. I. Mendeleev (1834–1907). He sent his table to print on February 17, 1869, and almost simultaneously sent it to his colleagues in Russia and abroad.

In connection with the decision taken by the UN, the question often arises of how relevant it is today to discuss the events associated with the discovery of Mendeleev. The world thinks it's greatest discovery continues to contribute to the development of many sciences. Researchers are still looking for the answer to many natural mysteries using the Periodic Table. In addition, studying the materials related to its creation, you sometimes see an absolutely non-linear process of how science is done. This is largely the purpose of the story about the table itself, the time in which it was created, and its author.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was born into the family of the director of the Tobolsk gymnasium, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev, and Maria Dmitrievna Kornilieva, the daughter of a poor Siberian landowner, on January 27 (February 8), 1834. In the family, he was the seventeenth child. As a child, Dmitry Ivanovich did not differ in particular diligence in his studies. In the gymnasium, he had very modest marks in Latin and the Law of God. He was willingly engaged only in mathematics and physics. His father died when Dmitry was 10 years old. His mother got a small Glass factory, which she managed during her son's studies at the gymnasium. In 1849, when Dmitry graduated from the gymnasium, the plant burned down, and the family moved first to Moscow, and then to St. Petersburg.

Mendeleev did not immediately manage to continue his education, but nevertheless in 1850 he was admitted to the department of natural sciences of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Main Pedagogical Institute of St. Petersburg. However, here the problems with studies continued. In his first year, he managed to fail all subjects except mathematics. The break came at the end of the course. In 1855, for an excellent certificate, Mendeleev received gold medal, and at the same time the direction to the post of senior teacher of the gymnasium in the southern city - Simferopol. Here he met Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov, a Russian surgeon, naturalist and teacher, professor, founder of military field surgery. However, soon, due to the outbreak of the Crimean War, he transferred to Odessa, where he worked as a teacher at the Richelieu Lyceum.

In 1856, Mendeleev returned to St. Petersburg and defended his dissertation at the university for a master's degree in chemistry. There he began to work and teach a course in organic chemistry. In 1864, Mendeleev was elected professor of chemistry at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, and a year later, in 1865, he defended his doctoral dissertation. Two years later, he already headed the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at St. Petersburg University.

Information has been preserved that the teacher of literature of Dmitry Ivanovich at the Tobolsk gymnasium was the later famous poet Pyotr Pavlovich Ershov, the author of the famous "Humpbacked Horse". In the spring of 1862 in St. Petersburg, Ershov's stepdaughter, Feozva Leshcheva, who was six years older than Mendeleev, became his first wife. But the relationship between the spouses did not develop, and this marriage in 1881 ended in divorce. The second wife, Anna Ivanovna Popova, was 26 years younger than her husband. She studied at the conservatory in piano, attended a drawing school in St. Petersburg. From 1876 to 1880 Anna studied at the Academy of Arts. Omitting many details of this novel, I will only mention that Mendeleev at least twice interrupted his work at the university and went to visit her in Italy. In 1881, while agreeing to a divorce, the church nevertheless imposed a six-year penance on Mendeleev; during this period he could not marry again. However, in April 1882, contrary to this decision, a priest of the Admiralty Church named Kutkevich married Mendeleev and Popova for ten thousand rubles. For violating the ban, Kutkevich was deprived of his spiritual title.

From two marriages, seven children were born. One of his daughters, the eldest from his second marriage, Lyubov Mendeleev, became the wife of the great Silver Age poet Alexander Blok.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev worked at St. Petersburg University until 1890, and it is with this period that his most important discovery is connected - the creation of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Preparing a lecture course called "Fundamentals of Chemistry", Mendeleev noticed a certain periodicity in the properties of chemical elements. This pattern was especially pronounced when he arranged the elements according to their atomic masses, even though some of these values ​​needed to be adjusted. In addition, it was on the basis of this approach that the prediction of some, then still unknown, chemical elements became justified.

History does not give an unambiguous answer to a number of questions related to the completion of work on the first version of the Periodic Table. It is known that on Monday, February 17, 1869, Mendeleev completed the development of a handwritten version of the table "Experience of a system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical similarity." Required Additional Information contained in an article that was written in the last ten days of February and also published in 1869 in the Journal of the Russian Chemical Society.

From the very beginning, Mendeleev was clearly aware that international recognition was necessary for his discovery. Therefore, back in February, he sent out his table to his Western European colleagues. In addition, on March 6 (18), 1869, the famous report by Mendeleev with the same title as the article was read by the first editor of the RCS journal, Professor Nikolai Aleksandrovich Menshutkin, at a meeting of the Russian Chemical Society. Here is how Dmitry Ivanovich wrote about it in 1905: “In the beginning of 1869, I sent out to many chemists on a separate sheet“ An experience of a system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical similarity ”, and in the March meeting of 1869 I informed the Russian Chemical Society "On the relationship of properties with the atomic weight of elements"".

This phrase does not specify why the author himself did not make his report. According to some reports, on February 17, he was supposed to go on a trip to inspect artel cheese factories in the Tver province. The departure did not take place because this day became the day of the "discovery of the Periodic Law", and the trip was postponed to the beginning of March. Mendeleev planned to visit his estate Boblovo along the way, where at that time work was underway to reconstruct his house. In other records of that time, it is noted that the report was read personally by D. I. Mendeleev. But all these details recede into the background compared to the most completed work.

Mendeleev was engaged in the development of the doctrine of periodicity until the end of 1871, step by step developing the "natural system of chemical elements." That year, he personally visited a number of high-class chemical centers, where he spoke about his work, constantly improving its first version. It is possible that the discovery of the Periodic Law was one of the examples that allowed the Nobel laureate of 1963, the American physicist of Hungarian origin Eugene Wigner, in his Nobel lecture on the structure of atomic nuclei, to formulate the philosophy of scientific research. According to him, "science begins when logic, consistency and regularity are revealed among the available natural phenomena, allowing them to be offered an explanation by creating a concept or to give their interpretation in a natural way."

As is often the case with important discoveries for which the time has come, a number of scientists in different countries around the same period, they also came to the conclusion about the periodicity in the system of chemical elements. The most famous among them are Lothar Meyer (1830–1895), who worked in Germany, and the English chemist John Newlands (1837–1898). I will talk about them a little later, but now special mention should be made of the Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro (1828–1910). His fate is very difficult. Educated at the universities of Palermo and Pisa, he took part in a popular uprising in Sicily, after which he was sentenced to death. For some time Cannizzaro lived in exile and only after that began work at a number of Italian universities. In 1871 he was elected to the Italian Senate and later became its vice-president. As a member of the Council of Public Education, he oversaw scientific education in Italy.

The main scientific merit of Cannizzaro was the system of basic chemical concepts he proposed. It was he who established the most accurate values ​​of atomic weights for that time, which later, obviously, contributed to the discovery of the Periodic Law of chemical elements. Cannizzaro outlined his theory in a brochure, which he personally distributed to the participants of the International Chemical Congress in Karlsruhe in 1860, among whom were D. I. Mendeleev and the already mentioned Julius Lothar Meyer.

In this regard, it should be recalled that Julius Lothar Meyer, a German chemist, a foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences since 1890, in his own way sought to restore order in the system of chemical elements. In his homeland, in the city of Farel (Lower Saxony), a memorial was erected with three sculptural portraits: Meyer, Mendeleev and Cannizzaro.

In 1864, Meyer published a table containing 28 elements arranged in six columns according to their valencies. Obviously, this table indicates the proximity of the properties of a limited number of chemical elements located in vertical columns. It was for this purpose that their number was limited. Mendeleev wrote that L. Meyer's table was only a simple comparison of elements according to valence, which was considered their fundamental property. It is clear that valence is not the only constant for a single element, therefore such a table could not claim to be a complete description of the elements and did not reflect the periodic law inherent in their distribution. Only six months after the first version of the periodic table, in 1870, Meyer published the work "The nature of the elements as a function of their atomic weight", which contained a new table and a graph of the dependence of the atomic volume of an element on atomic weight.

Approximately simultaneously with the publication of Meyer's table of chemical elements in accordance with their valency, the English chemist John Newlands proposed his own version of the periodic table of elements. It began with the fact that in early 1864 Newlands read an article in which it was stated that the atomic weights of most elements were more or less exact multiples of eight. The author's opinion was erroneous, but Newlands decided to continue research in this area. He compiled a table in which he arranged all the known elements in order of increasing their atomic weights. In an article dated August 20, 1864, he noted that "in this series there is a periodic appearance of chemically similar elements." After numbering the elements and comparing their properties, Newlands concluded: “The difference in the numbers of the smallest member of the group and the one following it is equal to seven; in other words, the eighth element, starting from this element, is a kind of repetition of the first, like the eighth note of an octave in music ... "This mystical musical harmony ultimately compromised the entire work, which outwardly somewhat resembled Mendeleev's Periodic Table.

A year later, on August 18, 1865, Newlands published a new table of elements, calling it the "law of octaves." On March 1, 1866, he made a presentation "The Law of Octaves and the Causes of Chemical Relations among Atomic Weights" at a meeting of the London Chemical Society, which did not arouse much interest. History has preserved only the sarcastic remark of George Foster, professor of physics at University College London: “Did the speaker try to arrange the elements in the order of the initial letters of their names and did you find any patterns?”

In 1887, the Royal Society of London awarded Newlands one of the most honorary awards of that time - the Davy Medal, which has been awarded annually since 1877 for achievements in chemistry. Newlands received it "for the discovery of the Periodic Law of Chemical Elements", although five years earlier, in 1882, this award was awarded to D. I. Mendeleev and L. Meyer "For the discovery of the periodic ratios of atomic weights." The award of Newlands looked somewhat doubtful, although the indisputable merit of the English scientist is that he really for the first time stated the fact of a periodic change in the properties of chemical elements, which was reflected in the "law of octaves". According to D. I. Mendeleev, “... in these works, some germs of the Periodic Law are visible.”

Now a few examples of how the Periodic System is connected with geology and, above all, with the sciences of the matter of the earth's shells. Everyone understands that mineralogy, constantly enriching ideas about minerals and, accordingly, about the chemical elements contained in their composition, contributed to the creation of the Periodic System. The system itself immediately pointed to a number of bottlenecks in scientific ideas about chemical elements. One of the first results of its use was the revision of the atomic weights of uranium and rare earth elements, as well as their transfer from divalent analogs of calcium to the group of trivalent elements. These days, the significance of this correction is becoming more and more obvious. The consumption of rare earth elements in Russia alone is more than two thousand tons per year. Approximately 70% is used in modern electronics and photonics, so this type of mineral raw material is being hunted all over the world.

The periodic table was built not only on the basis of atomic weights. It also took into account the properties of chemical elements. Thanks to this, Mendeleev was able to predict ekaaluminum (gallium) and ekasilicon (germanium). Both elements were soon discovered - in 1876 and 1886, respectively. They are also very important in semiconductor technology, and therefore the need for them is very high. Finally, it should be mentioned that even during the life of Mendeleev, a family of noble gases was discovered. This discovery clearly made it possible to move away from the analogy of periods with musical octaves and pointed to the selection in the table of octets of chemical elements with the repetition of similar properties on the ninth element. It should be added that in addition to the use of these elements in technology, they are considered as the most important components of the deep shells of gas giants.

Additions to the table are associated not only with the discoveries of new chemical elements. It should be noted that in the Periodic Table, the position of an element, determined by its atomic weight, did not always fully correspond to its chemical properties favored by Mendeleev. So the question arose: does an element have a more fundamental property than its atomic weight? In 1913, six years after the death of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, the young English physicist Henry Moseley introduced the concept of the atomic number of an element - positive charge atomic nucleus. Moseley's calculations of atomic spectra later led to the discovery of four hitherto unknown elements: hafnium, rhenium, technetium, and promethium.

The model of the electronic structure of atoms contributed to the understanding of the features of their behavior in geochemical processes. In particular, when the German mineralogist Hugo Strunz discovered the first gallium mineral gallite CuGaS 2 in 1958, everyone began to think that gallium should be sought in the well-known chalcopyrite CuFeS 2, since both minerals have the same type of structure. But it was completely unsuccessful. The reason is that iron in chalcopyrite and gallium in gallite have different outer electron shells. In gallium, they contain 18 electrons, while in iron they contain only 13. This example shows that the Periodic Table allows a lot to be understood in the science of ore minerals.

The great role of the Mendeleev system in mineralogy was immediately appreciated by the young professor of Moscow State University Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, who built in late nineteenth century table of isomorphically replacing elements - the so-called Vernadsky series. The atomic radii were not yet known at that time, and substitutions were considered only within the vertical rows or groups of the Periodic System. Therefore, the Vernadsky series did not meet with recognition from mineralogists and geochemists, and at the same time the Periodic System itself faded into the background.

The situation changed radically after Victor Goldschmidt formulated the rule for isomorphic substitutions in 1926. He pointed out that under isomorphism the size of the substituted ions cannot differ by more than 10–15%. Therefore, in the mid-1940s, calls were made by Alexander Nikolaevich Zavaritsky and Anatoly Georgievich Betekhtin not to forget about the Periodic System when considering not only isomorphic substitutions, but also geochemical processes. The Periodic System itself, now, in addition to the atomic weight and serial number of the element, was supplemented by the value of its ionic radius. Thus, in the Periodic Table, the diagonal rows corresponding to the permissible isomorphic substitutions were revealed. They can be illustrated by: Li + - Mg 2+ - Sc 3+; Na + - Ca 2+ - Y 3+ - Th 4+; Al 3+ - Ti 4+ - Nb 5+ - W 6+. Alexander Evgenievich Fersman paid great attention to this diagonal law. It became clear why sodium and calcium replace each other in any proportions in feldspars - the main rock-forming minerals earth's crust. At the same time, to maintain the charge balance, heterovalent isomorphism proceeds according to the scheme: Na + + Si 4+ = Ca 2+ + Al 3+ . Further on the diagonal is yttrium, and with it the entire group of rare earths. In minerals, the chemical elements of this group are almost always associated with calcium, and this, as already noted, was the reason that they were initially assigned a valence of +2.

In general, the results of these works have expanded the understanding of the periodic change in new, previously unknown properties of chemical elements - ionic radii, ionization potential and other concepts of energy crystal chemistry.

Facts from the life of Mendeleev indicate that he was a very versatile person who admired and was interested in a lot. One of his unusual hobbies was the manufacture of suitcases. His products are different high quality and goodness. The secret was in a special recipe for the preparation of the adhesive mixture, which the scientist invented himself. All the merchants of Moscow and St. Petersburg sought to get suitcases "from Mendeleev himself."

In the last years of his life, Mendeleev did a lot to open the first university in Siberia, in Tomsk, and contributed to the opening of the Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv. In 1866 he became one of the founders of the first Russian Empire chemical society. In 1890, Mendeleev was forced to leave St. Petersburg University because of his support for the student movement, associated with dissatisfaction with the conditions of life and study, and also because of disagreements with the Minister of Public Education. In 1892, Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte suggested that Mendeleev become the custodian of the Depot of Exemplary Weights and Measures, which in 1893, on the initiative of Dmitry Ivanovich, was transformed into the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures. He considered it necessary to introduce the metric system of measures in Russia, which, at his insistence, was adopted in principle in 1899. At the beginning of 1907, D. I. Mendeleev fell ill with pneumonia and soon died. He is buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Summing up some results of the history of the creation of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, it is necessary to emphasize once again the special priority role of D. I. Mendeleev. This was definitely recognized by the international scientific community during his lifetime. In 1905, he was awarded the highest award of the Royal Society of London - the Copley medal, awarded since 1731, "For his contribution to the chemical and physical sciences." Mendeleev was elected a member of the Royal Society of London, as well as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1876, Dmitry Ivanovich became a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. However, Mendeleev's candidacy for academician in 1880 was undeservedly rejected, despite his international fame and the fact that, to a large extent, thanks to him, St. Petersburg became a recognized center of chemistry. Obviously, this was very humiliating for him.

Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times: in 1905, 1906 and 1907. However, only foreigners nominated him. Members of the Imperial Academy of Sciences repeatedly rejected his candidacy by secret ballot. Each time it was nominated by one or two people, while competitors were nominated by 20-30 scientists. It is known that the Nobel Prize is given primarily for the results of recent research, so there were disagreements: how much the creation of the Periodic Table can be considered contemporary work? One of the very convincing arguments in favor of its relevance was the absolutely logical placement of noble (inert) gases discovered at that time in it. In 1905, the Nobel Committee considered, in addition to the works of D. I. Mendeleev, the work of two other chemists: Adolf von Bayer (Germany, organic chemistry) and Henri Moissan (France, inorganic chemistry). As a result, the prize was awarded to von Bayer. In 1906, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry recommended D. I. Mendeleev for the award general meeting Royal Swedish Academy. The voting results at the committee meeting were 4:1 in favor of Mendeleev. The only vote was for Moissan. A member of the Nobel Committee, Peter Klason, spoke very actively for him. He did not underestimate the importance of Mendeleev's work, but he very persistently emphasized that without the exact values ​​of atomic weights obtained by Cannizzaro, the creation of the Periodic Table would hardly have been possible. He also suggested considering Mendeleev and Cannizzaro together as candidates for the Nobel Prize. At first glance, this proposal seemed reasonable enough. However, consideration of Cannizzaro as a candidate for the prize in 1906 was no longer possible, since the nomination ended on 31 January. Therefore, the 1906 prize was awarded to A. Moissan. The following year, 1907, Mendeleev and Cannizzaro, now together, were nominated for the Nobel Prize. However, Mendeleev died that year, and according to the rules of the Nobel Committee, this prize is not awarded posthumously.

Of course, the absence of Mendeleev's name in the list Nobel laureates- a huge mistake. The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements hangs in every classroom or auditorium where chemistry is taught. His name is still well known throughout the world.

In 1905, Mendeleev wrote: “Apparently, the future does not threaten the Periodic Law with destruction, but only superstructures and development promises.” The past 150 years have fully proved the validity of this statement, and the law itself has accelerated the development of all natural sciences.

The article uses materials from the publication: Hargittai B., Hargittai I. Year of the periodic table: Mendeleev and the others // Structural Chemistry, 2019, vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 1–7.