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Dmitri MendeleevFebruary 1869 (by the Russian calendar of the time)

Did Mendeleev dream the periodic table?

One of the most repeated stories in science says the periodic table appeared to Mendeleev complete in a dream. The evidence says otherwise.

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Der Traum

Nach den unten genannten Quellen in eigenen Worten nacherzählt, nicht zitiert.

In the popular version, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev had spent days trying to arrange the known chemical elements in a meaningful order. Exhausted, he fell asleep and saw a table in which every element fell into its proper place. When he woke he wrote it down, and only one correction was needed later.

The story usually comes with a quotation in which Mendeleev himself describes the dream. That quotation cannot be traced to anything he wrote.

Woher die Geschichte stammt

Mendeleev published his periodic system in 1869; it predicted undiscovered elements and became the basis of modern chemistry. The dream story was told by a colleague, the geologist Alexander Inostrantsev, long afterwards, and does not appear in Mendeleev's own writings.

His working drafts from the decisive day survive and have been studied closely, which is rare for a famous discovery and makes this story checkable.

Wie der Traum gedeutet wurde

Forschung

The psychologist George Baylor reviewed what is actually known and concluded that there is no dream report from Mendeleev himself. Drawing on the Soviet historian B. M. Kedrov's study of the manuscripts, he notes that the table was already worked out on paper before the supposed dream, and that at most a later dream may have shown an improved layout.

Fragen zu deinen eigenen Träumen

  1. Why do you think we love stories of discoveries made in one night?
  2. What have you worked out slowly that people assume came to you easily?
  3. Have you ever dreamed about a task you were stuck on, and did it help?

Hattest du einen Traum, der dir im Gedächtnis geblieben ist?

Meinen Traum erzählen

Quellen

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  1. George W. Baylor (2001). What do we really know about Mendeleev's dream of the periodic table? A note on dreams of scientific problem solving. Dreaming 11.

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    • Fundstelle: whole article (Fundstelle noch nicht geprüft)

    Draws on B. M. Kedrov's study of Mendeleev's manuscripts.