A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table PDF
Preview A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table
A WELL- ORDERED THING Rough draft of the first periodic system, dated 17 February 1869, from Smirnov, Mendeleev, insert 1. A WELL- ORDERED THING Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table Revised Edition Michael D. Gordin Princeton University Press Princeton and oxford Copyright © 2019 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number 2017959004 ISBN 978- 0- 691- 17238- 5 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Miller and Myriad Pro Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 TO MY FAMILY If passion less, and reason more, My wayward nature checked and led, If some great change of empire bore The seat of rule from heart to head; . . . If I could trim my muse’s wing Control her flight, abate her rage, And teach her, a well- ordered thing, To coo and warble in a cage . . . — GeorGe Henry Boker (1882) CONTENTS List of Figures xi Preface to the Revised Edition xiii Preface xv Note to the Reader xix 1. Introduction: Autocracy and Mr. Mendeleev 1 Liberalism in the Name of Autocracy 3 Making Sense of the Man 8 2. Elements of the System: Building Periodicity and a Scientific Petersburg 11 The Education of Dmitrii Mendeleev 14 Principles of Chemistry and the Periodic System 19 System into Law: Making Periodicity Natural 27 Clairvoyance: The Eka- Elements 31 The Vindication of Prophecy: The Eka- Discoveries 36 Conclusion: Gathering the Elements of the System 41 3. The Ideal Gas Lawyer: Expanding Science on the Banks of the Neva 44 True Bedrock: The Cultural Significance of Ether 47 Confined Spaces: The Prosecution of the Gas Project 52 Clearing the Atmosphere: Strategies of Publication 61 The Weather Overground: Mendeleev’s Meteorology 64 Plagued by Theory: Abandoning Gases 69 4. Chasing Ghosts: Spiritualism and the Struggle for Public Knowledge 74 Made in America, Remade in Russia: The Transfer of Spiritualism 76 Spiritualism in 1875: Tenuous Cooperation 81 Spiritualism in 1876: A Meltdown of Method 90 Public Spirited: Spinning the Commission 95 At Wit’s End: Spiritualism after the Commission 103 5. The Great Reaction: Everyone against the Academy of Sciences 106 Social Climbing: The Academy and the Physico- Chemical Society 106 The Ballot Booth: Voting on Mendeleev 110
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