Dmitri Mendeleev

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was rejected. Maria did not give up, however, and the family headed for St. Petersburg.
Mendeleev was left alone to face his work at the university. Dmitri fell right into his work at St. Petersburg. Mendeleev graduated and was awarded the medal of excellence for being first in his class. Mendeleev already had his life's ambitions in mind and, hoping to extend his life as long as possible, he moved to Simferopol in the Crimean Peninsula near the Black Sea in 1855 as chief science master of the gymnasium. He was 21 years old.
In 1856, Mendeleev returned to St. Petersburg and defended his master's thesis: "Research and Theories on Expansion of Substances due to Heat." Following his masters program, Dmitri focused his life on his career of teaching and research. He was essentially a teacher devoted to his work .The first led to his books and the periodic table. In 1859, he was assigned by the Minister of Public Instruction to go abroad to study and develop scientific and technological innovations. Between 1859 and 1861 he studied the densities of gases with Regnault in Paris and the workings of the spectroscope with Kirchoff in Heidelberg. He also tested for the critical temperature. While in Heidelberg he met A.P. Borodin, a chemist .In 1860 at the Chemical Congress at Karlsruhe, Mendeleev had the opportunity to hear Cannizzaro discuss his work on atomic weights.
Following his trip abroad, the Russian chemist returned to his homeland where he settled down to a life of teaching and research in St. Petersburg. In 1863 he was named Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and, in 1866, he became Professor of Chemistry at the University and was made Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". As will be seen, his research findings were expansive and beneficial to the Russian people. Dmitri was always in touch with the classroom. Much of his lab work, including that on the periodic cha...