The image of D.I. Mendeleev is still surrounded by a trail of legends that turn him into a kind of epic hero. In a prophetic dream, the scientist allegedly dreamed of a table of the periodic law of chemical elements, he boldly ascended in a balloon to the sun, invented an oil pipeline, discovered the secret of smokeless gunpowder, legalized forty-degree Russian vodka and adored making suitcases. The great chemist was a Renaissance figure — an encyclopedist, with a huge social temperament and practical acumen, like Lomonosov, and a theorist of the rank of Newton and Darwin, the creators and founders of breakthrough and truly scientific disciplines. The periodic law he discovered, confirmed by later discoveries in atomic physics, had a predictive value that none of his predecessors could offer. Creating the scientific work "Fundamentals of Chemistry" written in excellent Russian (1869-1871), Mendeleev was essentially engaged in obstetrics and the design of a grandiose and comprehensive physico-chemical theory that retains enduring importance.
The image of D.I. Mendeleev is still surrounded by a trail of legends that turn him into a kind of epic hero. In a prophetic dream, the scientist allegedly dreamed of a table of the periodic law of chemical elements, he boldly ascended in a balloon to the sun, invented an oil pipeline, discovered the secret of smokeless gunpowder, legalized forty-degree Russian vodka and adored making suitcases. The great chemist was a Renaissance figure — an encyclopedist, with a huge social temperament and practical acumen, like Lomonosov, and a theorist of the rank of Newton and Darwin, the creators and founders of breakthrough and truly scientific disciplines. The periodic law he discovered, confirmed by later discoveries in atomic physics, had a predictive value that none of his predecessors could offer. Creating the scientific work "Fundamentals of Chemistry" written in excellent Russian (1869-1871), Mendeleev was essentially engaged in obstetrics and the design of a grandiose and comprehensive physico-chemical theory that retains enduring importance.