WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 If you close your eyes right now and just picture 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:05.400 a standard high school chemistry classroom, there 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.710 is... There's basically one thing that is universally 00:00:08.710 --> 00:00:10.890 hanging on the wall. Oh, yeah, the periodic table 00:00:10.890 --> 00:00:13.289 of elements. I mean, you literally cannot have 00:00:13.289 --> 00:00:15.449 a chemistry classroom without one. Right. It 00:00:15.449 --> 00:00:17.949 functions as this, you know, ultimate map of 00:00:17.949 --> 00:00:20.050 the physical universe. Yeah, and it just looks 00:00:20.050 --> 00:00:24.149 so perfect. It's this incredibly colorful logical 00:00:24.149 --> 00:00:27.989 grid where all the all the building blocks of 00:00:27.989 --> 00:00:31.050 reality are just neatly boxed up. Organized perfectly 00:00:31.050 --> 00:00:32.990 by weight and properties. Yeah, exactly. And 00:00:32.990 --> 00:00:35.429 looking at it, the whole system seems so inevitable, 00:00:35.750 --> 00:00:37.299 almost like I think it was just handed down to 00:00:37.299 --> 00:00:39.299 us already etched in stone. I think it was always 00:00:39.299 --> 00:00:41.899 meant to be there. Right. But for this deep dive, 00:00:41.939 --> 00:00:43.979 we've actually been combing through the historical 00:00:43.979 --> 00:00:46.759 sources, specifically excerpts and records from 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:49.979 the Wikipedia archives on Dmitri Mendeleev. And 00:00:49.979 --> 00:00:52.179 the real mission today is to uncover the life 00:00:52.179 --> 00:00:54.640 of the guy who actually dreamt this table up. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:56.679 And you mean that quite literally with the dreaming 00:00:56.679 --> 00:00:59.320 part. I really do. We'll get to that. Because 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:01.880 we all know the table, but the guy behind it, 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:07.260 wow. The contrast is just wild. pristine mathematical 00:01:07.260 --> 00:01:10.859 order of that table on one hand, and then the 00:01:10.859 --> 00:01:13.959 sheer chaos of Mendeleev's actual life on the 00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:16.519 other. That's what makes this exploration so 00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:19.159 compelling to me. Oh, for sure. The real story 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:21.700 of the periodic table is anything but neat and 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:24.120 orderly. Not even a little bit. So we are going 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:26.439 way beyond just protons and electrons today. 00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:29.180 We're exploring a story that involves, you know, 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:33.659 surviving brutal Siberian tragedies. scientific 00:01:33.659 --> 00:01:36.459 prophecies that honestly bordered on magic, a 00:01:36.459 --> 00:01:38.840 genuinely scandalous love life. Which is always 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:41.939 fun. Right. And petty academic grudges that cost 00:01:41.939 --> 00:01:44.879 him the ultimate prize in science. Plus, we're 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:47.019 even going to debunk a very famous myth about 00:01:47.019 --> 00:01:49.939 Russian vodka along the way. It is really the 00:01:49.939 --> 00:01:52.099 ultimate historical example of an individual 00:01:52.099 --> 00:01:54.640 just desperately searching for order in a deeply 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:57.379 unpredictable world. OK, let's unpack this. Because 00:01:57.379 --> 00:01:59.780 to understand the mind that organized the universe, 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:02.060 we have to start in a place that was completely 00:02:02.060 --> 00:02:04.340 devoid of organization. We need to go to Siberia. 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:06.560 So if you're listening and you're imagining Mendeleev 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:11.539 as this privileged aristocrat, sitting in a plush 00:02:11.539 --> 00:02:14.319 St. Petersburg parlor, stroking his beard and 00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:16.900 pondering the cosmos. Just completely erase that 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:19.919 image. Yeah. Totally erase it. Dmitri Mendeleev 00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:23.539 was born in 1834 in this tiny freezing village 00:02:23.539 --> 00:02:26.659 near Tobolsk in Siberia. And he was born into 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.879 a family situation that was essentially a crucible 00:02:29.879 --> 00:02:33.060 of relentless hardship. That really feels like 00:02:33.060 --> 00:02:35.199 an understatement when you look at the raw numbers 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:37.340 from the sources. Oh, the numbers are staggering. 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:41.280 He was the youngest of 17 siblings, 17. It's 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:43.819 hard to even fathom. And the records note that 00:02:43.819 --> 00:02:46.319 only 14 of them even survived long enough to 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:48.969 be baptized. Yeah. Now, literally from the very 00:02:48.969 --> 00:02:51.889 moment he is born, death and tragedy are just 00:02:51.889 --> 00:02:54.949 the baseline reality for this family. Yeah. Now, 00:02:54.949 --> 00:02:57.069 his father, Ivan, was a school principal and 00:02:57.069 --> 00:03:00.389 a teacher, which provided some level of stability 00:03:00.389 --> 00:03:02.650 at first. Right. But shortly after Demetra was 00:03:02.650 --> 00:03:06.250 born, his father went entirely blind. And consequently, 00:03:06.590 --> 00:03:09.169 he lost his teaching position. So the family's 00:03:09.169 --> 00:03:11.870 primary source of income just vanished overnight. 00:03:12.189 --> 00:03:15.150 Which is terrifying. And that forces his mother, 00:03:15.409 --> 00:03:18.340 Maria, to step up. in a massive way. I mean, 00:03:18.439 --> 00:03:21.039 she had to go and restart her family's abandoned 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.979 glass factory just to keep all of them from starving. 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:26.400 She was clearly an incredibly resilient woman. 00:03:26.580 --> 00:03:29.580 You have to be right. Absolutely. But the tragedies, 00:03:29.780 --> 00:03:32.439 they just kept compounding when Dimitri was 13 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:36.159 years old. Two catastrophic things happened basically 00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:38.939 back to back. First, his father passed away. 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:41.780 And then that glass factory, which was their 00:03:41.780 --> 00:03:43.560 sole livelihood at this point, it completely 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:45.199 burned to the ground. It's just crushing. You 00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:46.979 literally lose everything. And this is where 00:03:46.979 --> 00:03:49.819 Maria makes a decision that honestly changes 00:03:49.819 --> 00:03:52.000 the course of human history. She does. Instead 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.759 of giving up, she looks at young Dimitri. And 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:57.259 he had clearly shown some real academic promise 00:03:57.259 --> 00:04:00.199 by this point. So she takes him on this. epic, 00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:02.979 desperate journey. Just packs up and leaves Siberia. 00:04:03.139 --> 00:04:05.080 Right, traveling thousands of miles across Russia 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:08.379 in 1849. And first, they go to Moscow, hoping 00:04:08.379 --> 00:04:10.219 to get him into the university there. And Moscow 00:04:10.219 --> 00:04:12.659 University rejects him. They just say no, and 00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:15.379 she refuses to turn around. She pushes on to 00:04:15.379 --> 00:04:18.980 St. Petersburg, aiming for his father's old school, 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:21.959 the main pedagogical institute. It's incredible 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.560 determination. It really makes me think of like 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:28.310 a struggling startup founder today. Yeah, that's 00:04:28.310 --> 00:04:30.069 a good comparison. Like you're totally out of 00:04:30.069 --> 00:04:33.149 money, your product just caught fire literally 00:04:33.149 --> 00:04:36.449 in this case, and you have exactly enough cash 00:04:36.449 --> 00:04:39.990 for a train ticket to make one final pitch to 00:04:39.990 --> 00:04:43.689 an investor. She essentially bet the family's 00:04:43.689 --> 00:04:46.610 remaining chips entirely on his brain. She bet 00:04:46.610 --> 00:04:49.689 everything on his intellect. And her gamble actually 00:04:49.689 --> 00:04:51.829 paid off in getting him enrolled. But the cost 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:54.519 was immense. Yeah, it was. Shortly after he was 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:57.959 finally accepted she passed away. And then Mendeleev 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:00.759 graduates, but he immediately contracts tuberculosis. 00:05:01.540 --> 00:05:03.740 He gets so sick that he has to relocate all the 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:05.959 way down to the Crimean Peninsula by the Black 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.519 Sea just to try and recover in the milder climate. 00:05:08.779 --> 00:05:11.139 So he's sidelined for years. Right. He doesn't 00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:13.220 even make its way back to St. Petersburg to begin 00:05:13.220 --> 00:05:17.120 his real academic career until 1857. Look at 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:20.279 the timeline of his early life. For you listening 00:05:20.279 --> 00:05:23.019 to this, just process that sequence of events. 00:05:23.139 --> 00:05:26.240 It is nothing but upheaval. Complete chaos. Constant 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:29.899 death, fire, rejection, cross -country migrations, 00:05:30.100 --> 00:05:33.439 and then deadly illness. Which really connects 00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:36.540 to a profound psychological theme when we analyze 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:40.079 his later scientific work. How so? Well, Mendeleev 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:42.519 grew up in a world of utter unpredictability. 00:05:43.180 --> 00:05:45.240 Everything he loved was either taken from him 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.000 or destroyed. So it is deeply telling. that a 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:51.660 man whose early life was defined by that extreme 00:05:51.660 --> 00:05:54.560 volatility became absolutely obsessed with finding 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:57.079 permanent, predictable order. Oh, wow. Yeah. 00:05:57.199 --> 00:05:59.199 He was looking for the underlying rules of the 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:01.480 natural world, rules that couldn't burn down, 00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:02.959 you know, rules that couldn't be taken away. 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:05.439 He was searching for an anchor. I love that perspective. 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:07.579 And that obsession with order is exactly what 00:06:07.579 --> 00:06:10.019 leads him to his absolute masterpiece. The periodic 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:12.680 table. Yes. So let's move into the 1860s. He's 00:06:12.680 --> 00:06:14.899 back in St. Petersburg. He's a professor and 00:06:14.899 --> 00:06:17.079 he's writing a primistry textbook called Principles 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:20.459 of Chemistry. And context is super crucial here 00:06:20.459 --> 00:06:23.079 to understand his breakthrough. At this point 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:26.360 in history, chemistry was still highly, highly 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:28.540 fragmented. Right, because there were only 56 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:31.360 known elements at the time. Exactly. And scientists 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:33.560 were discovering about one new element a year, 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:36.420 but it was just this growing pile of isolated 00:06:36.420 --> 00:06:39.199 facts. It wasn't a system. Just random puzzle 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:42.259 pieces. Yeah. Now, other chemists, like John 00:06:42.259 --> 00:06:44.620 Newlands and Lothar Meyer, they had noticed some 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:47.160 repeating patterns. Newlands even proposed a 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:49.639 law of octaves, where he noticed that certain 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:52.240 properties repeated every eighth element. Like 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:55.220 musical notes. Right. but nobody had truly cracked 00:06:55.220 --> 00:06:59.019 the code to unify all of them into a single cohesive 00:06:59.019 --> 00:07:01.259 predictive system. They were just staring at 00:07:01.259 --> 00:07:03.879 the pieces they had on the table. But Mendeleev, 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.000 while he's working on this textbook, he's just 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:07.879 trying to figure out how to categorize these 00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:09.939 elements in a way that actually makes sense for 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:11.639 his students. He just wanted a good teaching 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:14.600 tool. Yeah. And the story goes from the sources 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.120 that the ultimate breakthrough came to him in 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.220 his sleep. Which is wild. He later told a colleague, 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:23.439 and I quote, I saw in a dream a table. where 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:26.259 all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, 00:07:26.279 --> 00:07:28.259 I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper. 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:30.920 It sounds almost mystical, like he somehow plugged 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.240 into the fundamental syntax of the universe while 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:37.019 he was napping. It really does. So in 1869, he 00:07:37.019 --> 00:07:39.300 takes this and makes a formal presentation to 00:07:39.300 --> 00:07:41.910 the Russian Chemical Society. He arranges the 00:07:41.910 --> 00:07:44.389 elements by two critical metrics. Okay, what 00:07:44.389 --> 00:07:46.850 are they? The first is their atomic weight, which 00:07:46.850 --> 00:07:49.990 we now call relative atomic mass, and the second 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:51.930 is by their valence. Okay, let's pause there 00:07:51.930 --> 00:07:53.430 because I really want to make sure we understand 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:55.629 how these two things intersect. What exactly 00:07:55.629 --> 00:07:59.550 is valency in this context? Good question. Think 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:03.379 of valence as the number of, well, hands. an 00:08:03.379 --> 00:08:06.060 atom has available to hold onto other atoms when 00:08:06.060 --> 00:08:08.339 it forms a chemical bond. Hands, okay. Yeah. 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:11.480 For example, hydrogen has one hand, oxygen has 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:14.139 two, carbon has four. Got it. So if you simply 00:08:14.139 --> 00:08:17.139 line up all 56 known elements in a single continuous 00:08:17.139 --> 00:08:20.040 row based only on how heavy they are their atomic 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:22.779 weight, you just get a long confusing string 00:08:22.779 --> 00:08:25.699 of metals and gases. Doesn't mean much. Right. 00:08:25.699 --> 00:08:27.800 But if you track the hands at the exact same 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:31.259 time. Precisely. Mendeleev noticed that as the 00:08:31.259 --> 00:08:34.299 elements got heavier, their valency, their number 00:08:34.299 --> 00:08:37.419 of hands followed a repeating pattern. The properties 00:08:37.419 --> 00:08:41.299 would rise, peak, and then drop back down. So 00:08:41.299 --> 00:08:43.980 by hitting return on his list, every time that 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:46.980 pattern repeated, he transformed a single line 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:50.480 of elements into a two -dimensional grid, a table. 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:53.409 Oh, that makes so much sense. Yeah. and suddenly 00:08:53.409 --> 00:08:56.090 elements with similar chemical behaviors stacked 00:08:56.090 --> 00:08:58.509 up perfectly in the same vertical columns. And 00:08:58.509 --> 00:09:01.090 here's is where it gets absolutely mind -blowing 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:04.289 for me because he didn't just organize the 56 00:09:04.289 --> 00:09:06.629 elements they knew about. He deliberately left 00:09:06.629 --> 00:09:09.629 blank spaces. This is the exact critical leap 00:09:09.629 --> 00:09:12.450 from being just a good categorizer to being a 00:09:12.450 --> 00:09:15.389 true visionary. Yeah. He arranged his table and 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:17.269 he noticed gaps in the mathematical pattern. 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:19.980 And instead of assuming his pattern was flawed, 00:09:20.379 --> 00:09:22.360 we're trying to awkwardly force known elements 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:24.860 into those slots just to finish the puzzle. Which 00:09:24.860 --> 00:09:26.919 is what most people would do, honestly. Right. 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:29.620 But he didn't. He assumed that there were elements 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:31.820 that simply hadn't been discovered yet. Here's 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.990 where it gets really interesting. Because anyone 00:09:34.990 --> 00:09:37.509 can sort a complete deck of playing cards, right? 00:09:37.549 --> 00:09:40.230 If I hand you a standard deck, you can put the 00:09:40.230 --> 00:09:42.210 hearts together, the spades together, line them 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:45.710 up two through ace. But Mendeleev basically laid 00:09:45.710 --> 00:09:48.629 out an incomplete deck, pointed to an empty space 00:09:48.629 --> 00:09:51.929 on the table and said, the jack of hearts is 00:09:51.929 --> 00:09:54.909 missing. Yes. It exists. You just haven't found 00:09:54.909 --> 00:09:57.470 it yet. And when you finally do find it, it will 00:09:57.470 --> 00:10:00.370 weigh exactly this much and it will interact 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:04.080 with other cards in exactly this way. How did 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:06.720 the scientific community react to that level 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.159 of confidence? Well, it was audacious. He wasn't 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.879 just predicting the mere existence of unknown 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:14.960 elements. He was dictating their highly specific 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:17.580 properties before anyone had ever even seen them. 00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:19.259 It's like calling your shot in baseball, but 00:10:19.259 --> 00:10:22.379 for chemistry. Exactly. He predicted three elements 00:10:22.379 --> 00:10:25.179 in particular, which he temporarily named Eka 00:10:25.179 --> 00:10:28.240 -aluminium, Eka -boron, and Eka -silicon. I noticed 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:30.519 that in the sources. Where does that prefix Eka 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:32.700 actually come from? It's Sanskrit for one. Yeah, 00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:37.019 he used Sanskrit prefixes, aka, dv, try, meaning 00:10:37.019 --> 00:10:39.080 one, two, or three spaces down in his table. 00:10:39.700 --> 00:10:42.460 And it's widely believed he did this to honor 00:10:42.460 --> 00:10:46.139 ancient Indian grammarians. Wait, grammarians, 00:10:46.379 --> 00:10:49.779 not scientists? Right, specifically a scholar 00:10:49.779 --> 00:10:53.059 named Panini, who had discovered complex two 00:10:53.059 --> 00:10:55.039 -dimensional patterns in the sounds of language 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:59.429 centuries earlier. Wow. Mendeleev saw a direct 00:10:59.429 --> 00:11:02.110 parallel between the syntax of human language 00:11:02.110 --> 00:11:04.690 and the underlying syntax of physical matter. 00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:07.679 Tying linguistics to atomic structure is just 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.539 brilliant. But he didn't stop at predicting the 00:11:10.539 --> 00:11:12.759 unknown. I mean, he was so confident in this 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:14.779 matrix that he actively picked fights with the 00:11:14.779 --> 00:11:16.659 accepted science of his day regarding the elements 00:11:16.659 --> 00:11:18.840 they did know about. Oh, he was totally fearless 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:21.159 about it. When established elements didn't fit 00:11:21.159 --> 00:11:23.460 his pattern, he flat out claimed the existing 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:25.379 measurements were wrong. That takes some nerve. 00:11:25.700 --> 00:11:27.759 Uranium's a perfect example. At the time, uranium 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:29.559 was believed to have an atomic weight of around 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:32.210 1 ,220. But how does he justify just changing 00:11:32.210 --> 00:11:34.330 a widely accepted weight out of nowhere? Like 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:35.990 you can't just cross out a number because it 00:11:35.990 --> 00:11:37.950 ruins the aesthetic of your table. Right. No, 00:11:38.129 --> 00:11:41.149 you can't. But he justified it through the chemical 00:11:41.149 --> 00:11:44.610 behavior. If uranium weighed 120, it would have 00:11:44.610 --> 00:11:47.570 to be placed in a column on the table where its 00:11:47.570 --> 00:11:49.730 chemical properties like how it reacts with oxygen, 00:11:49.929 --> 00:11:52.899 its valency. completely mismatched all the other 00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:54.559 elements in that column. It would be the odd 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:57.720 one out. Exactly. So Mendeleev have argued that 00:11:57.720 --> 00:12:00.340 the fundamental pattern of nature was more reliable 00:12:00.340 --> 00:12:02.720 than the flawed measuring instruments of his 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:06.419 day. Wow. He theorized that uranium didn't have 00:12:06.419 --> 00:12:09.480 a valency of three, as previously thought, but 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:12.259 a valency of six. And when you redo the math 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:14.700 with that assumption, the atomic weight doubles 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:17.970 to around 240. which drops it perfectly into 00:12:17.970 --> 00:12:19.990 a column where the chemical behavior suddenly 00:12:19.990 --> 00:12:22.950 makes total sense. So he was essentially telling 00:12:22.950 --> 00:12:25.830 the established scientific community, your scales 00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:27.950 are broken, my dream table is right. And the 00:12:27.950 --> 00:12:30.470 crazy thing is, within his own lifetime, he was 00:12:30.470 --> 00:12:32.899 completely vindicated. Scientists eventually 00:12:32.899 --> 00:12:35.299 discovered gallium, scandium, and germanium. 00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:38.320 The missing jacks of hearts. They perfectly matched 00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:40.799 the specific weights and properties he had laid 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:44.620 out for eco -luminium, eco -boron, and eco -silicon 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:47.519 years earlier. It was an absolute triumph of 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:49.700 theoretical chemistry. But, you know, when you 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:51.539 run around telling the scientific establishment 00:12:51.539 --> 00:12:53.879 that their measurements are wrong and your invisible 00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:57.279 theoretical elements are right... You make enemies. 00:12:57.340 --> 00:12:59.820 Oh, definitely. Even if you turn out to be completely 00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:02.559 correct. Challenging the establishment bruises 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:06.179 egos. And from the sources, it seems like that 00:13:06.179 --> 00:13:09.000 sheer unbending stubbornness didn't just stay 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:12.100 in his laboratory. It bled very deeply into his 00:13:12.100 --> 00:13:14.379 personal life too. Yeah, his personal life was 00:13:14.379 --> 00:13:16.559 exceptionally turbulent, especially when we get 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:19.639 to 1876. While he was still married to his first 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:23.750 wife, He met a woman named Anna Popova and fell 00:13:23.750 --> 00:13:26.190 intensely in love with her. And he began courting 00:13:26.190 --> 00:13:28.370 her aggressively, right? Very aggressively. The 00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:30.769 sources actually say that by 1881, he was so 00:13:30.769 --> 00:13:32.629 desperate to marry her that he threatened to 00:13:32.629 --> 00:13:34.850 commit suicide if she refused his proposal. That 00:13:34.850 --> 00:13:38.529 is incredibly intense and toxic, frankly. Very. 00:13:39.289 --> 00:13:41.309 He eventually secured a divorce from his first 00:13:41.309 --> 00:13:45.929 wife and married Anna in 1882. But the critical 00:13:45.929 --> 00:13:49.659 issue here was the timeline. Oh. He married Anna 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:52.840 just one single month. after the divorce was 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:55.519 finalized. Which was a massive legal and social 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:58.559 violation back then in Russia. Huge. The Russian 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:01.100 Orthodox Church had incredibly strict rules regarding 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:03.679 divorce. You were explicitly required to wait 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:06.220 at least seven years after a divorce before you 00:14:06.220 --> 00:14:08.960 could lawfully remarry. Yeah. So by jumping the 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:12.740 gun, Mendeleev was technically legally a bigamist. 00:14:12.899 --> 00:14:15.519 And this private scandal had massive professional 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:18.580 repercussions for him. Because of the bigamy 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:21.019 controversy, despite being internationally famous, 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.059 as the man who basically mapped the elements, 00:14:23.519 --> 00:14:26.039 he was repeatedly denied admission into the Russian 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:28.220 Academy of Sciences. They just locked him out 00:14:28.220 --> 00:14:30.600 entirely. Yeah. The local establishment shunned 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:33.120 him. But the pettiness wasn't just limited to 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:34.919 Russia. No, it wasn't. We have to talk about 00:14:34.919 --> 00:14:37.399 the stolen Nobel Prize, because this part of 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:40.519 the archive is wild to me. It remains one of 00:14:40.519 --> 00:14:43.120 the most infamous snubs in the history of science. 00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:46.529 Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 00:14:46.529 --> 00:14:49.870 Chemistry nine times. Nine times. Across the 00:14:49.870 --> 00:14:54.110 final three years of his life. 1905, 1906, and 00:14:54.110 --> 00:14:57.049 1907. I mean the Nobel committee is looking at 00:14:57.049 --> 00:14:59.789 his resume and he literally invented the periodic 00:14:59.789 --> 00:15:02.090 table. It seems like the easiest decision in 00:15:02.090 --> 00:15:04.710 the world. You would think so. And in 1906 the 00:15:04.710 --> 00:15:07.590 Nobel committee for chemistry formally recommended 00:15:07.590 --> 00:15:10.250 to the Swedish Academy that they award the prize 00:15:10.250 --> 00:15:13.700 to Mendeleev. Okay. The chemistry section entirely 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:16.139 supported it, and usually the full academy just 00:15:16.139 --> 00:15:18.360 rubber stamps the committee's choice as a formality. 00:15:18.899 --> 00:15:21.259 But then enter a man named Svante Arrhenius. 00:15:21.639 --> 00:15:23.960 Right. Svante Arrhenius was a highly influential 00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:25.759 Swedish scientist. Now, he wasn't even on the 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:27.919 chemistry committee, but he wielded a massive 00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:30.419 amount of power within the broader academy. Interesting. 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.039 And he aggressively lobbied the members to reject 00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:35.700 Mendeleev. He argued publicly that the periodic 00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:38.039 system was, quote, too old to be acknowledged 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:41.299 in 1906. Too old. That is a terrible excuse for 00:15:41.299 --> 00:15:43.539 a timeless discovery. I mean, gravity is old, 00:15:43.559 --> 00:15:46.220 but it still works. Exactly. And the sources 00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:48.379 tell us exactly what was really going on behind 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:50.360 the scenes. Right, because it was personal. Very 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:53.500 personal. According to contemporaries, Arrhenius 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:57.490 was motivated by a bitter personal grudge. Years 00:15:57.490 --> 00:15:59.850 earlier, Arrhenius had developed something called 00:15:59.850 --> 00:16:02.750 dissociation theory. OK, what does that mean 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:05.409 in terms of chemistry? Just briefly. Basically, 00:16:05.610 --> 00:16:08.309 dissociation theory proposed that when you dissolve 00:16:08.309 --> 00:16:11.070 salts in water, they break apart into independent 00:16:11.070 --> 00:16:13.870 electrically charged particles called ions. OK, 00:16:13.950 --> 00:16:16.710 makes sense. But Mendeleev, who was a staunch 00:16:16.710 --> 00:16:18.929 believer in strict chemical combinations and 00:16:18.929 --> 00:16:21.929 definite proportions, thought this was total 00:16:21.929 --> 00:16:24.990 nonsense. Oh, boy. Yeah, Mendeleev believed that 00:16:24.990 --> 00:16:27.769 water and salts formed highly specific chemical 00:16:27.769 --> 00:16:30.389 bonds called hydrates. He didn't buy the idea 00:16:30.389 --> 00:16:32.649 of charged particles just floating around independently. 00:16:33.289 --> 00:16:36.149 So he openly and harshly criticized Arrhenius's 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:38.750 work. And Arrhenius clearly never forgave him 00:16:38.750 --> 00:16:42.149 for that public mockery. Nope. Arrhenius used 00:16:42.149 --> 00:16:44.370 his immense influence to pressure the Academy. 00:16:45.129 --> 00:16:47.870 And after heated arguments, they actually rejected 00:16:47.870 --> 00:16:50.789 Mendeleev. They gave the prize to a French chemist. 00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:54.980 Henri Moissat by a margin of exactly one single 00:16:54.980 --> 00:16:57.759 vote. One vote? And Arrini has pulled the exact 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:00.580 same strings to block Mendeleev again the next 00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:03.440 year in 1907. So wait, you're telling me this 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:05.940 man blueprints the fabric of the universe and 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:08.079 he gets canceled by the Swedish Academy because 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:11.599 of a petty high school level cafeteria grudge 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:14.099 over a disagreement about saltwater? Basically, 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:16.440 yeah. It raises a vital question about how we 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:18.339 view the history of science, honestly. Yeah, 00:17:18.339 --> 00:17:20.720 we always love to imagine scientific progress 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:24.619 as this pure objective noble march toward absolute 00:17:24.619 --> 00:17:27.039 truth. But this shows that the reality is that 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:30.059 science is conducted by flawed humans. It is 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:33.079 deeply entangled with human ego, personal jealousy, 00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:35.579 and bureaucracy. Completely. But you know, while 00:17:35.579 --> 00:17:37.460 the Nobel committee was busy stabbing him in 00:17:37.460 --> 00:17:40.019 the back over bruised egos, Mendeleev didn't 00:17:40.019 --> 00:17:42.319 really just sit around sulking. Oh, far from 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:44.420 it. He applied his genius to basically every 00:17:44.420 --> 00:17:46.380 other industry he could get his hands on. He 00:17:46.380 --> 00:17:49.579 was a prolific polymath. His brain didn't just 00:17:49.579 --> 00:17:52.299 stop at theoretical chemistry. He looked at the 00:17:52.299 --> 00:17:55.519 entire Russian empire as a system that desperately 00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:59.019 needed optimizing. For instance, he is credited 00:17:59.019 --> 00:18:01.420 with introducing the metric system to the Russian 00:18:01.420 --> 00:18:03.759 Empire. Yes. He became the director of the Bureau 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:05.680 of Weights and Measures because he realized that 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:08.039 if Russia was going to compete globally, they 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:10.660 needed standardized, reliable measurements. And 00:18:10.660 --> 00:18:13.339 he was also a huge visionary regarding natural 00:18:13.339 --> 00:18:16.579 resources. He helped found the very first oil 00:18:16.579 --> 00:18:19.319 refinery in Russia. Oh, wow. While most people 00:18:19.319 --> 00:18:21.319 in the 1800s just saw petroleum as something 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.799 you burn for heat or light, Mendeleev recognized 00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:28.200 its profound chemical value. He saw it as a vital 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:30.920 feedstock for petrochemicals, you know, the building 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:32.859 blocks for plastics, solvents, and medicines. 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:35.680 The Wikipedia sources have this amazing quote 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:37.880 from him where he states that burning petroleum 00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:40.859 merely for fuel, quote, would be akin to firing 00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:43.599 up a kitchen stove with banknotes. That's a great 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:46.420 quote. It is. He saw the hidden value before 00:18:46.420 --> 00:18:49.259 anyone else, and it doesn't stop there. He also 00:18:49.259 --> 00:18:51.900 invented pyrocollodium. Right. Which was a type 00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:54.180 of smokeless powder commissioned by the Russian 00:18:54.180 --> 00:18:57.460 Navy. And he studied agriculture to improve fertilizer 00:18:57.460 --> 00:19:00.380 efficacy. He even spent time actively fighting 00:19:00.380 --> 00:19:02.779 against the cultural rise of spiritualism. Yeah, 00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:05.559 the seances and all that. Exactly. He argued 00:19:05.559 --> 00:19:08.880 that seances and metaphysical idealism were just 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:11.559 ignorant superstitions holding back progress. 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:14.579 He was basically engaged in a one man crusade 00:19:14.579 --> 00:19:18.140 to drag Russian society into the modern empirical 00:19:18.140 --> 00:19:21.740 age. Which brings us to my favorite part, because 00:19:21.740 --> 00:19:25.740 on top of all that, he basically invented modern 00:19:25.740 --> 00:19:29.579 Russian vodka. Oh, boy. He's the guy who scientifically 00:19:29.579 --> 00:19:31.759 calculated that the perfect vodka needs to be 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.480 exactly 40 % alcohol. I've literally seen that 00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:36.440 in modern advertising campaigns. Yeah, I've seen 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:38.279 those too. It is a brilliant piece of marketing, 00:19:38.339 --> 00:19:41.259 but it is entirely fiction. Wait, really? The 00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:43.420 genius chemist formulating the perfect ratio 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:45.440 for the national drink isn't true at all? It 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:48.160 is a complete myth. The 40 % standard for Russian 00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:50.039 vodka was actually introduced by the Russian 00:19:50.039 --> 00:19:53.259 government in 1843. Okay. And if you check the 00:19:53.259 --> 00:19:55.440 timeline, Medvedev was only nine years old in 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.160 1843. A mathematically gifted nine -year -old, 00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.519 perhaps. That's certainly not setting national 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.079 liquor laws. Definitely not. Now, it is true 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:04.779 that he was the head of the Bureau of Weights 00:20:04.779 --> 00:20:08.359 and Measures later. in the 1890s. But that agency 00:20:08.359 --> 00:20:10.559 was in charge of standardizing trade weights, 00:20:11.180 --> 00:20:13.579 like making sure a kilogram was truly a kilogram. 00:20:13.619 --> 00:20:16.680 Right. They were not setting recipes or quality 00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:20.000 standards for distilleries. And while his 1865 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:23.640 doctoral dissertation was indeed titled, A Discourse 00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:26.589 on the Combinations of Alcohol and Water. Ah, 00:20:26.730 --> 00:20:29.309 so he did write about alcohol. He did, but it 00:20:29.309 --> 00:20:31.670 only analyzed medical strength alcohol concentrations 00:20:31.670 --> 00:20:35.089 of over 70%. He never wrote a single word about 00:20:35.089 --> 00:20:37.890 vodka. That is so funny. We have a guy who fundamentally 00:20:37.890 --> 00:20:40.430 mapped the elements, advanced the metric system, 00:20:40.730 --> 00:20:43.230 foresaw the petrochemical industry, and engineered 00:20:43.230 --> 00:20:46.700 naval explosives. But society collectively decides 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:49.460 to credit him with inventing the perfect ratio 00:20:49.460 --> 00:20:52.059 for vodka. It just goes to show that humans love 00:20:52.059 --> 00:20:54.400 a tidy, entertaining legend much more than a 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:56.759 complex reality. Yeah, we really do. The vodka 00:20:56.759 --> 00:20:59.670 story is a fun anecdote. But Mendeleev's true 00:20:59.670 --> 00:21:02.829 superpower was his incredible ability to synthesize 00:21:02.829 --> 00:21:06.789 diverse, seemingly unrelated fields. He saw the 00:21:06.789 --> 00:21:09.450 hidden interconnectedness of macroeconomics, 00:21:09.829 --> 00:21:13.289 heavy industry, and microscopic molecular chemistry 00:21:13.289 --> 00:21:16.329 in a way that very few thinkers ever have. He 00:21:16.329 --> 00:21:19.059 saw the whole board. It's an incredible arc. 00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:21.299 I mean, looking back at what we've covered, we've 00:21:21.299 --> 00:21:24.140 gone from a tragic, freezing Siberian childhood, 00:21:24.500 --> 00:21:26.240 surviving the death of his parents and a burning 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.480 factory, to literally mapping the invisible elements 00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:32.240 of the universe. Yeah. He fought through academic 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:35.160 pettiness, survived his own self -inflicted scandals, 00:21:35.319 --> 00:21:38.059 and became a true industrial visionary. And he 00:21:38.059 --> 00:21:41.079 worked relentlessly until the very end. Mendeley 00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:44.420 died of influenza in 1907 at the age of 72 in 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:46.750 St. Petersburg. The sources record his final 00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:49.009 words, spoken to his physician right before he 00:21:49.009 --> 00:21:51.710 passed. He said, Doctor, you have science, I 00:21:51.710 --> 00:21:54.210 have faith. Wow. Which is such a poignant final 00:21:54.210 --> 00:21:56.569 thought from a man who spent his entire life 00:21:56.569 --> 00:21:59.130 quantifying the physical world. It really is. 00:21:59.369 --> 00:22:00.950 And, you know, as we wrap up this deep dive, 00:22:01.029 --> 00:22:03.089 there's a final reflection I really want to leave 00:22:03.089 --> 00:22:06.009 you the listener to mull over. Go for it. When 00:22:06.009 --> 00:22:09.579 we look at Mendeleev's life. His absolute greatest 00:22:09.579 --> 00:22:13.119 stroke of genius wasn't just his ability to categorize 00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:15.960 the things he already knew. His true brilliance 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.160 was his deep respect for what he didn't know. 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:21.059 The empty spaces. Exactly. He had the courage 00:22:21.059 --> 00:22:23.559 to leave blank spaces on his table. He didn't 00:22:23.559 --> 00:22:26.460 let his ego force a flawed puzzle together just 00:22:26.460 --> 00:22:28.500 to have a finished product. That's a great point. 00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:31.000 So as you look at your own life, your own work, 00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:33.720 or just the endless stream of information you 00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:37.299 consume every day, ask yourself, Where are you 00:22:37.299 --> 00:22:39.960 trying to force the data to fit? Where are you 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.759 jumping to conclusions just to avoid the discomfort 00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:46.140 of not knowing? Maybe, instead of forcing a bad 00:22:46.140 --> 00:22:48.519 fit, we should all practice Mendeleev's courage, 00:22:48.940 --> 00:22:51.640 the courage to leave a blank space and simply 00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:53.500 trust that the truth will eventually fill it. 00:22:54.039 --> 00:22:56.599 What an amazing thought to end on. I mean, if 00:22:56.599 --> 00:22:58.680 you ever find yourself staring at that periodic 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:00.819 table on a classroom wall again, you'll know 00:23:00.819 --> 00:23:03.140 it's not just a list of chemicals. It's a monument 00:23:03.140 --> 00:23:05.890 to the power of empty space. Thank you so much 00:23:05.890 --> 00:23:07.829 for joining us on this custom deep dive. We'll 00:23:07.829 --> 00:23:08.509 catch you next time.