Talk:Dmitri Mendeleev

This article was in the New York Times! (Who was that "numbskull" quoted here?)

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Universal gas constant was discovered and first introduced into the ideal gas law by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1874<ref> Mendeleev, D. I. (1874). "О сжимаемости газов (On the compressibility of gases)". Russian Journal of Chemical Society and the Physical Society. 6: 309–352. (in Russian) (From the Laboratory of the University of St. Petersburg).</ref><ref> Mendeleev, D. I. (1875). "Об упругости газов (On the elasticity of gases)". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) (in Russian) Facsimile at the Bibliothèque nationale de France</ref><ref> Mendeleef D. (1877). "Researches on Mariotte's Law". Nature. 15 (388): 498–500. doi: 10.1038/015498a0.</ref>. Before him the ideal gas law used by a lot of nonuniversal specific gas constants ${\displaystyle \ R_{s}}$ (Clapeyron original equation<ref>Clapeyron, E. (1834). "Mémoire sur la puissance motrice de la chaleur". Journal de l'École Polytechnique. XIV: 164. (in French) Facsimile at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (pp. 153–90).</ref>: ${\displaystyle \ pv=R(267+t)}$; modern notation: ${\displaystyle \ PV=R_{s}T}$).

The article today just says he travelled there.

There is this meme saying he walked 1,000 km to enroll in university. Can we find an authoritative quote to either prove or disprove this?

bcartolo (talk)

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The section "Vodka myth" contains misleading and mostly incorrect information based on unproven internet posts/references. The section should be changed to be consistent with available peer reviewed publications on this topic. Below pls use these references: [1] Michael Gordin, “The Science of Vodka [letter to the Editor],” The New Yorker (13 January 2003), p.7; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/01/13 [2] Vladimir Shiltsev, Dmitri Mendeleev and the science of vodka, Physics Today, 22 August 2019, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.6.4.20190822a [3] Vladimir Shiltsev, Elizaveta Shiltseva, "Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907): The Periodic Table and Beyond", Il Nuovo Saggiatore, v.36, No.3-4 (2020), pp. 51-64; also FERMILAB-CONF-20-031 (2020), https://lss.fnal.gov/archive/2020/conf/fermilab-conf-20-031-ad-apc.pdf [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Standard_(vodka) [5] Evseev, Anton (21 November 2011). "Dmitry Mendeleev and 40 degrees of Russian vodka". Science. Moscow: English Pravda.ru. Retrieved 6 July 2014; https://english.pravda.ru/science/119683-dmitry_mendeleev_vodka/ [6] Jennifer Eremeeva, "Russian Vodka Day. Celebrate vodka's official birthday", Moscow Times, Jan. 31, 2018;

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/01/31/russian-vodka-day-a60322

Mendeleev is often credited with inventing vodka as a mixture of 40 parts pure alcohol and 60 parts water. This claim, however, is unsubstantiated and appeared only after the scientist’s death [1,2,3]. For example, Russian Standard vodka advertises: "In 1894, Dmitri Mendeleev, the greatest scientist in all Russia, received the decree to set the Imperial quality standard for Russian vodka, and thus the 'Russian Standard' was born" [4]. Others cite "the highest quality of Russian vodka approved by the royal government commission headed by Mendeleev in 1894" [5]. As a peak of this popular myth, January 31—the day of Mendeleev’s 1865 doctoral dissertation defense entitled “A Discourse on the Compounds of Alcohol and Water”—is widely celebrated in Russia as the “official vodka birthday” [6].

In reality, Mendeleev’s dissertation reported the results of meticulous scientific measurements of the density and thermal expansion of alcohol–water mixtures across the full range of concentrations from 0 to 100%. Through these experiments, he investigated molecular interactions, discovering several combinations with anomalous density values. He concluded that alcohol and water molecules form stable associations at certain concentrations: one alcohol molecule with three water molecules (46% alcohol by mass, 52% by volume), three alcohol molecules with one water molecule, and one alcohol molecule with twelve water molecules. This phenomenon was explained much later by intermolecular hydrogen bonding. A byproduct of Mendeleev’s research was the refinement of alcoholometric tables in several countries—tables listing the densities of alcohol–water mixtures, used, among other purposes, to determine the alcohol content of strong beverages [2].

It is true that Mendeleev, a strong proponent of state-supported industrial development and a scientific expert on alcohol rectification, participated in a Russian government commission tasked with introducing an efficient excise tax on alcohol and other consumer goods. One outcome of the commission’s work was a clarification of the minimum required alcohol content in vodka—no less than 40% by volume—and the approval of standardized measurement methods. By the early 1900s, the taxes he helped implement were generating about a quarter of the country’s revenue. Yet again, Mendeleev’s role on the commission was not related to inventing vodka or specifying its optimal mixture [3]. 46.110.121.205 (talk) 18:22, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. I would also like you to note that your request is a large block of text. Please note that you may need to change it to the above mentioned "change X to Y format for the request to be accepted. Theeverywhereperson (talk here) 09:46, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

The article states, Mendeleev was technically a bigamist; the Russian Orthodox Church required at least seven years before lawful remarriage. There was no such rule at the time (and, AFAIK, at any time) in the ROC. Probably, there was some individual penance placed on Mendeleev as a condition of divorce. This wouldn't have prevented him from legally remarrying immediately provided he can find a priest willing to perform the rite (and thus risking the potentially very severe disciplinary action), as the ROC tradition gives a very wide berth to a priest on the subject of who can get married (under the general label of "economy", see the details in the Russian Wikipedia under ru:Икономия). I will try to find the sources. The subject should be studied quite well due to Mendeleev's first daughter from the second marriage being notable in her own right (ru:Блок, Любовь Дмитриевна). Викидим (talk) 18:21, 1 July 2026 (UTC)