The periodic patience of Dmitri Mendeleev
In our final comic of the International Year of the Periodic Table, Mendeleev puts his elemental cards on the table
Writing an inorganic chemistry textbook, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev came up with the periodic table as we know it today (more or less). His key insights include: leaving gaps for elements yet to be discovered, being brave enough to ignore atomic masses and trust elements’ periodic properties, and predicting the properties of future elements.