Mendeleyev - Element 101 is named after Dimitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834-1907), the Russian chemist who formulated the 'Periodic Table' of the elements between 1868-71. By grouping the 62 then known elements in order of increasing atomic weight he demonstrated a recurrence of properties and predicted the properties of elements which 'ought' to exist but which had not then been discovered. His system did not gain wide acceptance at first but the discovery of the 'missing' elements, with the properties which he had predicted, helped validate his theory which is now part of the framework of chemistry. (Photo: Science Photo Library)
