Question
Question: Who was the first scientist to prepare the periodic table?...
Who was the first scientist to prepare the periodic table?
Solution
Periodic table in chemistry is a specific arrangement of all the chemical arrangements based on a few periodic laws such as based on atomic numbers and few similar properties.
Complete step by step solution:
Elements such as gold, silver, copper, mercury, etc. were already known and used by people then. But after some time scientists started discovering new elements with new properties. A German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus in 1669 for the first time followed by others. More than 40 elements were discovered till 1809 and scientists observed a specific pattern in the characteristics of the elements. This is where the scientist started grouping the elements and arranging them.
In 1869, the Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev started to create a periodic table based on the atomic numbers of the element. Till that time there were few elements that were not discovered and he left gaps in the table. The periodic table had groups that are columns that contained elements with similar properties.
Dimitri Mendeleev did not receive a nobel prize for his work but in 1961 a new element was discovered and was placed at position 101 in the periodic table and was named Mendelevium in 1963.
Hence, the first scientist to prepare the periodic table was Dimitri Mendeleev.
Note:
Mendeleev predicted the properties of many elements that were not discovered back then just based on their position in the periodic table, for example, he left gaps for an undiscovered element in a column below aluminum and called that element as eka-aluminum. He predicted few properties for Eka aluminum which were then proved to be right when gallium was discovered, an element below aluminum in the periodic table.