INTRODUCTION

The Russian born Dmitri Mendeleev is one of the many great fathers of science as there are many accredited with this title. This is not to suggest that science is a bastard art, however the gene pool is well contaminated – Aristotle, Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton - all are considered, in one fashion or another, fathers of the modern tradition of science. 

In 1864 Mendeleev’s contribution to science, recognized today as a standard of scientific classification, was made possible by a demonstration of his keen insight into the subtle yet distinctive changes exhibited between properties of chemical elements. His simple genius – introducing a second or vertical dimension to what previously was considered a random or linear system – is what allowed the radical annotation of The Periodic Table of Elements.

This ordering (or re-ordering) divided the elements into systems of periods and trends. Each period or trend accounts for a structural or transitional distinction between certain qualities of specific groupings of elements. Quite unexpectedly, these distinctions lent Mendeleev an almost precognitive perception, as the method of his ordering suggested the existence of elemental structures no other philosopher, artist or scientist had before postulated. 

It is likely Dmitri would never have made these predictions, some verified decades after his death, without the advance of this arrangement. For Mendeleev the Periodic Table is more than just a new system of organization, it is a completely new way of seeing the world and its structures about him.