it is fitting that a version of the table was held over its creator's coffin during the advance of his funeral procession. Dmitri Mendeleev was an irascible Russian chemist most famous for his work in developing the periodic table of elements. He was the youngest of 17 children and after studying to become a teacher, he took an advanced degree in chemistry in 1857. Mendeleev began his work on the periodic table in 1869 while writing a textbook. It was in this book that he began grouping elements in an ascending order according to their atomic weight (essentially relative atomic mass), noticing that chemically similar elements tended to fall into similar columns. Initially not all of the 63 known elements would fit into Mendeleev's table, and so he altered the atomic weights of indium and beryllium so that they would fit (their initial weights were somewhat inaccurate). In 1871 Mendeleev published a revised table, which also included gaps for elements that had yet to be discovered. At first this table was not well received and some of his fellow scientists ridiculed even the idea of seeking an order among the properties of the elements ('You might as well order them alphabetically, according to the first letter of their names' one of his colleagues remarked). However, as new elements were found and began to fit Mendeleev's predicted gaps, the table became an accepted tool for further research and discovery. Mendeleev continued to improve upon his table and work on other areas including the liquefaction of gases. In honour of his work, the transuranic element Mendelevium is named after him. The formulation of the periodic table was perhaps the single most influential idea in the history of chemistry it is fitting that a version of the table was held over its creator's coffin during the advance of his funeral procession.
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