A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitri Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table
Dmitrii Mendeleev: It's a name we recognize, but only as the disheveled scientist pictured in our high school chemistry textbook, the creator of the periodic table of elements. Until now little has been known about the man, but A Well-Ordered Thing draws a portrait of this chemist in three full dimensions.Historian Michael Gordin also details Mendeleev's complex relationship with the Russian Empire that was his home. From his attack on Spiritualism to his humiliation at the hands of the...
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The story of the enigmatic man who organized chemistry into the periodic table--and of how he tried to organize Imperial Russia Publishers Weekly The periodic table of the elements, present in virtually every high school and college chemistry classroom, was conceptualized in large part by the 19th-century Russian chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev. Mendeleev's work was critically important because it brought intellectual order to the many elements and greatly advanced our understanding of how they function. To this day, his work provides a context that enables students' entry into the complexities of chemistry. In this fluid intellectual biography, Gordin, a historian of science and of Russian history at Princeton, focuses on Mendeleev's professional years and puts his scientific activities in the context of the rapidly evolving Russian state. Gordin demonstrates that Mendeleev was adept at using the media to advance his career while attempting to build respect for the role of scientists in a changing society. For example, he played a central role in a scientific endeavor to debunk the spiritualist movement that was spreading rapidly throughout Russia in the 1870s by placing scientific controls on s ances. Known during his lifetime as Russia's leading scientist, Mendeleev helped shape imperial policy on a range of scientific and public issues, from taxation to academic policy and from meteorology to metrology. Although Gordin's topic is fascinating, his presentation will be best suited to those with considerable knowledge of Russian history and of science. B&w photos. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Note to the readerPreface1Introduction32Elements of the system153The ideal gas lawyer494Chasing ghosts815The great reaction1136The imperial turn1457Making Newtons1758Disintegration2079Conclusion : the many Mendeleevs239Acknowledgments255Index of Frontispiece images257Notes258Bibliography318Index358
\ Publishers WeeklyThe periodic table of the elements, present in virtually every high school and college chemistry classroom, was conceptualized in large part by the 19th-century Russian chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev. Mendeleev's work was critically important because it brought intellectual order to the many elements and greatly advanced our understanding of how they function. To this day, his work provides a context that enables students' entry into the complexities of chemistry. In this fluid intellectual biography, Gordin, a historian of science and of Russian history at Princeton, focuses on Mendeleev's professional years and puts his scientific activities in the context of the rapidly evolving Russian state. Gordin demonstrates that Mendeleev was adept at using the media to advance his career while attempting to build respect for the role of scientists in a changing society. For example, he played a central role in a scientific endeavor to debunk the spiritualist movement that was spreading rapidly throughout Russia in the 1870s by placing scientific controls on s ances. Known during his lifetime as Russia's leading scientist, Mendeleev helped shape imperial policy on a range of scientific and public issues, from taxation to academic policy and from meteorology to metrology. Although Gordin's topic is fascinating, his presentation will be best suited to those with considerable knowledge of Russian history and of science. B&w photos. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \
