Audio tour First publications of the periodic law

The history of the discovery of the Periodic Law is complex and dramatic. It has been the focus of research conducted by many Russian and foreign historians of chemistry.

The exhibition describes the first publications of the Periodic System of Elements titled by Dmitri Mendeleev ‘An attempted system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical analogies’ (this title is shortened to ‘An attempted system…’).

At present, seven publications of the first handwritten version of ‘An attempted system…’ are known: 1) a pamphlet with a heading in Russian, undated; 2) a pamphlet with a heading in French, dated ‘1. III. 1869’; 3) a publication of ‘An attempted system…’ in the Journal für Praktische Chemie; 4) a publication of ‘An attempted system…’ after the introductory chapter to Part I of the Principles of Chemistry (issue No 2, 1st edition); 5) a publication of ‘An attempted system…’ as part of Mendeleev’s article ‘The Correlation of Properties with the Atomic Weight of Elements’ in the Journal of the Russian Chemical Society; 6) a separate reprint of the same article; and 7) an abstract of this article with the Periodic Table published in Zeitschrift für Chemie.

These are seven almost identical printed versions of ‘An attempted system…’ – almost identical, but not quite…