Celebrating the periodic table
Peter Wothers tells us about the first published version of Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, currently on show in Cambridge
St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, is holding an exhibition Celebrating the Periodic Table from 12 March to 5 April 2019. Among other historic versions of the famous chart is a first edition of Dmitri Mendeleev’s textbook, which contains the first published formulation of his periodic table. We spoke to Peter Wothers, director of chemistry studies at St Catharine’s, and Colin Higgins, the college librarian, about the significance of this book in the history of chemistry.