Item #233 Osnovy khimii [i.e. The Principles of Chemistry]. D. I. Mendeleev.
Osnovy khimii [i.e. The Principles of Chemistry]
Osnovy khimii [i.e. The Principles of Chemistry]

Osnovy khimii [i.e. The Principles of Chemistry]

Item #233

St. Petersburg, 1869-71. Part I: [4], III, [1], 816 pp., 151 ills. (1869); Part II: [4], [1], 951, [1] pp., 28 ills., 1 folding table (1871). 8vo. Woodcut illustrations, folding letterpress table in Part II. Contemporary quarter-leather. Rebacked. Blind lettering on the spine. The folding table is backed with tissue paper at the joints. Inscriptions in text. Half-title lacks a small piece (vol.1), restored, not affecting the text.

Provenance: from the library of Alexander Petrovich Mikhnevich (1853-1912), stamp at the end of Contents of vol.2. Mikhnevich was an engineer, teacher and writer. His margins could be found throughout the book, especially interesting those are in vol.1. where he added some elements to the table adding the phrase ‘somewhat different table in the new edition’ (in pencil).

First edition. Extremely rare.
The periodic table of elements is a fundamental tool in the understanding of chemistry today. It categorizes elements by atomic number, electron configurations and recurring chemical properties. Some elements were only discovered because the Table existed, and it is now impossible to imagine chemistry without it.
It was introduced by Dmitry Mendeleev, and it was printed for the first time in this very book, The Principles of Chemistry, in 1869-1871. Mendeleev was the first to recognize that the apparent randomness of elements fitted into a system. Furthermore, he suggested that the gaps in his system would later be filled with elements yet unknown to the scientific world. He was proved right. He had rejected the common practice of placing elements in the order of their atomic weight. He put the elements in order of their nuclear charge before such a phenomenon had been discovered (it was not adequately understood until the existence of protons and neutrons had been proven).
The ‘discovery’ (or construction) of the table is a fine example of how the human mind managed to leap beyond contemporary understanding to lay the foundations on which later progress was built.
Mendeleev didn’t achieve instant recognition for what he had done. Robert Bunsen, the celebrated German chemist of the time, rebuked one of his students who had tried to explain to him the profound significance of the discovery: «Don’t get to me with these guesses. The same ‘regularities’ can be found in stock-market reports!» It was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that Mendeleev’s theory was finally acknowledged. In the first decade of the 20th century, Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times (1905, 1906 and 1907) and it was for purely circumstantial reasons that he did not receive it. He opposed the Nobel brothers’ politics in respect of Russia’s oil industry, and having failed to win twice, he was robbed of the Prize after being awarded it on his third nomination, because of his untimely death at the age of 72.

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