Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	Artificial radioactive elementArtificial radioactive element melting point -- °C; -- °F boiling point -- °C; -- °F density -- g/cc; -- pounds/cubic foot
1955 Albert Ghiorso and co-workers, Berkeley, Calif., USA
Д. И. Менделеев (D.I. Mendeleyev) (1834-1907)

First prepared in 1955 by Albert Ghiorso, Bernard G. Harvey, Gregory R. Choppin, Stanley G. Thompson, and Glenn T. Seaborg at the Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California by bombardment of Einsteinium with Helium ions.

In his autobiography, Seaborg says about the naming of Mendelevium (note) :

We thought it fitting that there be an element named for the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, who had developed the periodic table. In nearly all our experiments discovering transuranium elements, we'd depended on his method of predicting chemical properties based on the element's position in the table. But in the middle of the Cold War, naming an element for a Russian was a somewhat bold gesture that did not sit well with some American critics.

In 1980, at the symposium Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Discovery of Mendelevium, Glenn T. Seaborg recalls the following anecdote, which was published in the Daily Cal at the time of the discovery of element #101:

"The University of California Nuclear Metaphysical Laboratories have announced a startling new finding in the world of atomics. The new discovery is an entirely novel element named 'Percentium' by its discoverer, the 15 1/2 year old Leonardo da Vinci. The element, number 101 in the atomic series, follows element number 100, 'Centium.' The youthful da Vinci said that this was the reason for the new element's name, Percentium. 'The interesting fact about Percentium,' said Moosbrugger, 'is that it has a negative half-life. That is,' he went on, 'its radioactivity and total mass increase 1 percent every 100 years. Probably it is the first of a series of elements that spontaneously integrates the successive members of the series.'" (this is not all, read the pdf-file, available on-line).

New name
John and Gordon Marks suggested in 1994 the name Bohemium (Bo) after Bohemia, where the actinides were first mined, cf. thulium after Thule where the lanthanides were first mined. The Marks brothers found the old names ugly and confusing. They offered alternative names that are equivalent contemporary (at the time and place of discovery) metaphors, both more euphonious and more memorable (note).

In 1893, he was appointed Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures. It was in this role that he was directed to formulate new state standards for the production of vodka. As a result of his work, in 1894 new standards for vodka were introduced into Russian law and all vodka had to be produced at 40% alcohol by volume.

Mendeleev also investigated the composition of oil fields, and helped to found the first oil refinery in Russia.

In 1905, Mendeleev was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The following year Nobel Committee for Chemistry recommended to the Swedish Academy to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1906 to Mendeleev for his discovery of the periodic system (see History of the Chemical Symbols). The Chemistry Section of the Swedish Academy supported this recommendation. The Academy was then supposed to approve the Committee choice as it has done in almost every case. Unexpectedly, at the full meeting of the Academy, a dissenting member of the Nobel Committee, Peter Klason, proposed the candidacy of Henri Moissan whom he favored. Svante Arrhenius, although not a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, had a great deal of influence in the Academy and also pressed for the rejection of Mendeleev, arguing that the periodic system was too old to acknowledge its discovery in 1906. According to the contemporaries, Arrhenius was motivated by the grudge he held against Mendeleev for his critique of Arrhenius's dissociation theory. After heated arguments, the majority of the Academy voted for Moissan. The attempts to nominate Mendeleev in 1907 were again frustrated by the absolute opposition of Arrhenius (note).

He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements. Using the table, he predicted the properties of elements yet to be discovered..

See also How to spell Менделеев in the Latin alphabet?

       

• Earl K. Hyde & Glenn T. Seaborg, Transurane : Teil A 1, I: Die Elemente. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, Ergänzungswerk zur 8. Aufl.; Band 7a. Weinheim/Bergstrasse: Chemie, 1973.
• Glenn T. Seaborg, Early History of LBNL, A transcript of the lecture on the 65th Anniversary of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, August 26, 1996 (on-line).
• A. Ghiorso, B.G. Harvey, G.R. Choppin, S.G. Thompson, and G.T. Seaborg, "New Element Mendelevium, Atomic Number 101" Phys. Rev. 98 (1955), 1518.