Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Wubblyboofus on 06/04/2019 01:48:35
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What specific historical experiment(s) discovered the periodic trends? Specifically density and reactivity trends of the periodic table. Provide links to their experiment and results please. I just can't find it on the internet for some reason and I need to know this for my lab report.
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This recent episode of the Naked Scientists Podcast was devoted specifically to the story of the periodic table (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/naked-scientists-podcast/periodic-table-150-au-years).
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Apparently, Mendeleev often travelled the trains in Russia. He took with him a deck of cards, containing the properties of the elements known at that time.
He played solitaire with these cards, rearranging them and eventually coming up with the skeleton of the periodic table we know today - and leaving holes for the elements that were unknown at that time. He predicted the properties of these unknown elements by interpolating vertically and horizontally in his prototype table, with quite good accuracy.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_periodic_table#Dmitri_Mendeleev
...but of course, many people contributed to the development of the periodic table!