Dmitri Mendeleev
His widowed mother rode 2,000 km across Russia to enroll him; he repaid it with the periodic table.
- Born
- 1834 · Tobolsk, Siberia, Russia
- Roots
- Russian, from Siberia
- Family
- Working class
- The youngest of more than a dozen children; his teacher father went blind the year he was born, and his mother restarted a glass factory to feed the family.
- Education
- Main Pedagogical Institute, St. Petersburg
- Started with
- A mother's journey
- After the glassworks burned down, his mother rode with him some 2,000 km to St. Petersburg to enroll him; she died months later.
- Affiliations & societies
- None documented.
- Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.
The pathway
- 1849 · age 15The journey west
Moscow University rejects the Siberian applicant; St. Petersburg takes him.
- 1855 · age 20Graduates first in his class
Despite a tuberculosis scare that sent him south for treatment.
- 1869 · age 34The periodic law
Arranging element cards like solitaire, he leaves gaps and predicts the properties of undiscovered elements.
- 1875 · age 40Vindication
Gallium is discovered matching his predicted 'eka-aluminium'; scandium and germanium follow.
- 1906 · age 72Nobel snub
Loses the chemistry prize by one vote amid committee politics; dies the next year.
- 1955Mendelevium
Element 101 is named for him.
Sources
Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.