How Mendeleev Invented His Periodic

Table in a Dream
“Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.”

BY MARIA POPOVA

Trailblazing chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (February 8, 1834–February 2, 1907) came

to scientific greatness via an unlikely path, overcoming towering odds to create the
periodic table foundational to our understanding of chemistry. Born in Siberia as one
of anywhere between 11 and 17 children — biographical accounts differ, as infant
mortality rate in the era was devastatingly high — he was immersed in tragedy from
an early age. His father was a professor of fine arts, philosophy, and politics, but grew
blind and lost his teaching position. His mother became the sole breadwinner, working
at a glass factory. When Dmitri was thirteen, his father died. Two years later, a fire
destroyed the glass factory.
The following year, determined to ensure her son’s education, his mother took him
across the country hoping to get him into a good university. The University of
Moscow rejected him. At last, they made it to Saint Petersburg, Russia’s then-capital.
Saint Petersburg University — his father’s alma mater and, incidentally, both of my
parents’ — admitted him and the family relocated there despite their poverty.

A promising scholar, Mendeleev — also spelled Mendeleyev in English — published

papers by the time he was 20 and attended the world’s first chemistry conference at
26. By his mid-thirties, he was intensely preoccupied with classifying the 56 elements
known by that point. He struggled to find an underlying principle that would organize
them according to sets of similar properties and eventually reaped the benefits of the
pattern-recognition that fuels creativity.
But rather than by willful effort, he arrived at his creative breakthrough by the
unconscious product of what T.S. Eliot called idea-incubation — one February
evening, after a wearying day of work, Mendeleev envisioned his periodic table in a
dream.
In Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements (public library), novelist Paul
Strathern reconstructs the landmark moment from the scientist’s letters and diaries,
and reimagines it with a dose of satisfying literary flourishing:
As Mendeleyev’s eyes ran once more along the line of ascending atomic
weights, he suddenly noticed something that quickened his pulse. Certain
similar properties seemed to repeat in the elements, at what appeared to be
regular numerical intervals. Here was something! But what? A few of the
intervals began with a certain regularity, but then the pattern just seemed to
peter out. Despite this, Mendeleyev soon became convinced that he was on the
brink of a major breakthrough. There was a definite pattern there somewhere,
but he just couldn’t quite grasp it… Momentarily overcome by exhaustion,
Mendeleyev leaned forward, resting his shaggy head on his arms. Almost
immediately he fell asleep, and had a dream.

The dream, of course, was just a function of what the human brain normally does
during sleep — organizing and consolidating the ideas, images, and bits of
information that occupy our waking hours. And what Mendeleev’s waking mind was
so vigorously occupied with was the quest for a classification system that would order
the elements. “It’s all formed in my head,” he lamented, “but I can’t express it.” It was
only when he reentered his own head under the spell of sleep’s uninhibited state that
the disjointed bits fell into a pattern and the larger idea expressed itself.
Mendeleev himself would recount in his diary:

I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required.
Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/08/mendeleev-periodic-table-dream/
Terbangun, saya segera menuliskannya di selembar kertas

Trailblazing

Saat mata Mendeleyev berlari sekali lagi di sepanjang garis beban atom naik, dia tiba-tiba melihat sesuatu yang
mempercepat denyut nadinya. Sifat-sifat serupa semacam itu tampak mengulangi unsur-unsurnya, yang tampaknya
merupakan interval numerik biasa. Inilah sesuatu! Tapi apa? Beberapa interval dimulai dengan keteraturan tertentu,
tapi kemudian pola itu sepertinya agak menyengat. Meskipun demikian, Mendeleyev segera menjadi yakin bahwa
dia berada di ambang sebuah terobosan besar. Ada pola yang pasti di suatu tempat, tapi dia tidak bisa memahaminya
... Sesaat setelah kelelahan, Mendeleyev mencondongkan tubuh ke depan, meletakkan kepalanya yang acak-acakan
di lengannya. Hampir seketika ia tertidur, dan bermimpi.

Saya melihat dalam sebuah mimpi sebuah meja dimana semua elemen jatuh pada tempatnya sesuai kebutuhan.
Terbangun, saya segera menuliskannya di selembar kertas.

Mimpi itu, tentu saja, hanyalah sebuah fungsi dari apa yang biasanya dilakukan otak manusia saat tidur - mengatur
dan mengkonsolidasikan gagasan, gambar, dan potongan informasi yang mengisi jam bangun kita. Dan apa yang
membuat pikiran Mendeleev terjaga begitu kuat adalah pencarian sistem klasifikasi yang akan memerintahkan
unsur-unsurnya. "Itu semua terbentuk di kepala saya," keluhnya, "tapi saya tidak bisa mengungkapkannya." Baru
pada saat dia memasuki kembali kepalanya sendiri di bawah mantra keadaan tanpa tidur, potongan-potongan yang
terputus-putus itu menjadi sebuah pola dan gagasan yang lebih besar. mengekspresikan dirinya.