periodic-table

For his part, Mendeleev scanned Lecoq de Boisbaudran__ data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justification, that he must have measured something wrong, because the density and weight of gallium differed from Mendeleev__ predictions. This betrays a flabbergasting amount of gall, but as science philosopher-historian Eric Scerri put it, Mendeleev always __as willing to bend nature to fit his grand philosophical scheme._ The only difference between Mendeleev and crackpottery is that Mendeleev was right: Lecoq de Boisbaudran soon retracted his data and published results that corroborated Mendeleev__ predictions.

For the first time I saw a medley of haphazard facts fall into line and order. All the jumbles and recipes and hotchpotch of the inorganic chemistry of my boyhood seemed to fit into the scheme before my eyes__s though one were standing beside a jungle and it suddenly transformed itself into a Dutch garden.[Upon hearing the Periodic Table explained in a first-tern university lecture.]