THE HISTORY OF THE PERIODIC TABLE
The recording and arrangement of elements dates all the way back to late 19th century. This century provided the origins of what we refer to as the periodic table of elements due to the five main chemists who collectively gathered enough information to answer the question "how did the periodic table come about?"
ANTOINE LAVOISIER
(1743-1794)
After a life of law and geology, Lavoisier was appointed a commisioner of the Royal Gunpowder and Saltpeter Administartion (the labratory within the organization would soon becaome a vital hot spot for the "Chemical Revolution.") His many experiments of combustion and respiration made him responsible for naming Oxygen and Hydrogen. The French chemist also developed the Law of Conservation of Mass (Chemical Heritage Foundation). In 1789, Lavoisier wrote the first modern chemical textbook. This book contained new theories of chemistry, a clear definition of the Law of Conservation of Mass, denied Priestley's theory of phlogiston, and a list of elments. The elements in the book included: oxygen, hydrogen zinc, mercury, sulfur, phosphorus, caloric, nitrogen, and light. (Science World Wolfram Research).
DMITRI MENDELEEV
(1834-1907)
Dmitri Mendelev was both a Russian teacher and academic chemist who spent most of his life worrying "that chemistry in Russia was trailing behind" Germany in terms of chemistry (Doc). To keep up with Germany he wrote books such as Organic Chemistry and two volumes of The Principles of Chemistry (Doc). In 1869, Mendeleev redesigned the periodic table using Newlands's draft of the table. His table would be the first orderly arrangement of the 63 elements know at that time. He put togeher elements with similar properties into groups. Like Newlands, he also arranged the known elements by their increasing atomic masses. He then continued to to label the elements with a symbol, their relative atomic masses, and their properties. Mendeleev's table was the first to predict the possibity of other elements that had yet to be discovered (Myers, Tocci, Oldham 117, 118).
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LOTHAR MEYER
(1830-1895)
Unlike Medeleev, Lothar Meyer was born into his scientific career. His family was of a medical backgroup, which influenced his interest in chemistry. In 1864, Lothar wrote the book Die modernen Theorien der Chemie. The book explained how he believed the periodic table was organized. He arranged twenty-eight elememnts into six families based on their atomic weights. Lothar also theorized that valence electrons, "beginning with the carbon group, were 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, and 2" for succeeding families (Chemical Heritage Foundation).
JOHN NEWLANDS
(1837-1898)
John Newlands is best known for creating one arrangement of the periodic table, noticing similar properties among that arrangement, and developing the Law of Octaves. In 1865, Newlands decided to place elements together based on their properties and increasing atomic masses. Repetition among the properties led him to create the Law of Octaves, a law stating how properties repeat themselves every eight elements. The law was met with controversy and skepticism due to the chemists of this time lacking knowledge regarding atoms (Myers, Tocci, Oldham 117).