Periodic Table
Meyer is best known for the share he had in the periodic classification of the elements. He noted, as did J. A. R. Newlands in England, that if they are arranged in the order of their atomic weights they fall into groups in which similar chemical and physical properties are repeated at periodic intervals; and in particular he showed that if the atomic weights are plotted as ordinates and the atomic volumes as abscissae, the curve obtained presents a series of maxima and minima, the most electro-positive elements appearing at the peaks of the curve in the order of their atomic weights.
His book on Die modernen Theorien der Chemie, which was first published in Breslau in 1864, has an early version of the periodic table containing 28 elements classified into 6 families by their valence — the first time that elements had been grouped and ordered according to their valence. Work on organizing the elements by atomic weight had hitherto been stymied by inaccurate measurements of the atomic weights.
Mendeleev published his periodic table of all known elements (and predicted several new elements to complete the table, plus some corrected atomic weights) in 1869. Working completely independently, a few months later, Meyer published a revised and expanded version of his 1864 table, virtually identical to that published by Mendeleev (Meyer had been sent a copy of Mendeleev's table earlier, Mendeleev sent it to all well known chemists of those times) and a paper showing graphically the periodicity of the elements as a function of atomic weight. As well as other chemists, Meyer was doubtful about Mendeleev's periodic law, and he criticized Mendeleev for 'changing existing elements' atomic weights, only regarding possibility of periodical law in its structure', but Mendeleev's work provided significant support, particularly when the new elements were found as predicted and remeasured atomic weights accorded with those predicted.
In 1882, Meyer received from the Royal Society, at the same time as Mendeleev, the Davy Medal in recognition of his work on the Periodic Law.
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