Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 3(2) Suppl. 5: 29-48, 2019

Firenze University Press 
www.fupress.com/substantia

ISSN 2532-3997 (online) | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-582

Citation: J. H. Maar, A. Maar (2019) 
The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an 
Essay. Substantia 3(2) Suppl. 5: 29-48. 
doi: 10.13128/Substantia-582

Copyright: © 2019 J. H. Maar, A. 
Maar. This is an open access, peer-
reviewed article published by Firenze 
University Press (http://www.fupress.
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Competing Interests: The Author(s) 
declare(s) no conflict of interest.

The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

Juergen Heinrich Maar1, Alexander Maar2

1 Retired, Chemistry Department, Federal University of Santa Catarina
2 Department of Philosophy, State University of Londrina, Paraná
E-mail: juergen.maar@gmail.com, alexander.maar@web.de

Abstract. In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the periodic table’s origins 
and history, and of the elements which conspired to make it chemistry’s most rec-
ognisable icon. We pay attention to Mendeleev’s role in the development of a system 
for organising the elements and chemical knowledge while facilitating the teaching of 
chemistry. We look at how the reception of the table in different chemical communities 
was dependent on the local scientific, cultural and political context, but argue that its 
eventual universal acceptance is due to its unique ability to accommodate possessed 
knowledge while enabling novel predictions. Furthermore, we argue that its capacity 
to unify apparently disconnected phenomena under a simple framework facilitates our 
understanding of periodicity, making the table an icon of aesthetic value, and an object 
of philosophical inquiry. Finally, we briefly explore the table’s iconicity throughout its 
representations in pop art and science fiction.

Keywords. Dmitri Mendeleev, the periodic table of elements, philosophy of chemistry, 
science and pop art, science fiction.

The Periodic Table was incredibly beautiful, the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen.
(Oliver Sacks)

An exposition of all that matters in matter.
(Bruce Greenhalgh)

INTRODUCTION

The periodic table of elements is chemistry’s most universal ‘tool’, used 
both as a teaching method and research instrument. But it is also a sign and 
icon that unites all chemical knowledge. In philosophy of language, ‘iconic-
ity’ is the name given to a certain similarity relation between the form and 
the meaning of a sign. The lack of similarity is arbitrariness, which means 
that there is nothing in the form of the sign that resembles its meaning, and 
simple convention associates the two. We borrow such terminology to claim 
that the periodic table is truly an icon, not just convention. Each of the little 
‘squares’ in any of the table’s representations encloses the totality of chemi-



30 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

cal and physical knowledge about a given element. In 
this sense the table is truly iconic: it is perceived as being 
so closely similar to that which it represents (the totality 
of chemical knowledge), that form and meaning become 
intrinsically bounded. 

Since its first formulation, the table has become a 
universally accepted icon which transits in many places 
of knowledge. It transits in classrooms and books as a 
didactic tool, it transits through research laboratories as 
a reference source, and it transits in annals and records 
of chemistry as a repository of scientific information 
and interpretations collected over time. Considering its 
widespread presence, we believe the table parades a dual 
nature: it is the consolidation of current chemical knowl-
edge, but also a heuristic tool used by chemists in their 
attempts to expand and consolidate such knowledge. 
Surprisingly perhaps, the ‘tool’ has not changed much 
since its conception. 

In the words of Scerri: 

The periodic table of elements is one of the most powerful 
icons of science: a single document that consolidates much 
of our knowledge of chemistry [and] despite the dramatic 
changes that have taken place in science in the last hun-
dred years [relativity and quantum mechanics] there has 
been no revolution in the basic nature of the periodic sys-
tem.1

Let us next say a few things about how the table 
came about, from early attempts to find analogies 
among chemical elements, to more refined views on 
periodicity. 

ANALOGIES

The practice of classifying is an important task in 
any science. It is a task that involves obtaining the par-
ticulars (objects) to be classified, finding non-spurious 
similarity relations – analogies – between the object 
and other entities thought to be of the same kind, and 
drawing empirical and logical conclusions from the 
way entities are organised. Scientific disciplines often 
make great efforts to divide particulars into kinds and 
theorise about the nature of these kinds. If one has real-
ist inclinations regarding scientific knowledge, one will 
often think of a kind as being ‘natural’, i.e. a grouping of 
particulars that is made possible by how nature is (and 
not by one’s interests or actions). If this is the case, then 
scientific taxonomies correspond to real natural kinds. 
And, as Bird and Tobin put it, “the existence of these 
real and independent kinds of things is held to justify 
our scientific inferences and practices.”2 

A classic example is Carl von Linné’s (1707-1778) 
botanical and zoological classification in his Systema 
Naturae (1735), which became a ‘model’ of classifica-
tion for other sciences as well. It inspired, for instance, 
Johann Beckmann (1739-1811) to classify technological 
activities in his Entwurf einer allgemeinen Technologie 
(1806). 

Chemists too felt the need to classify elements and 
substances. Lavoisier himself, in presenting his table 
of elements in 1789, classified them. Each of the four 
groups of ‘simple substances’ presents similar or even 
identical qualities. If we look more closely at a Table of 
Affinities, such as that of Torbern Bergman (1735-1784) 
from 1775, we will find a classification: each group of 
substances presents qualitatively equal and quantitatively 
decreasing properties. 

After Lavoisier, the concern of chemists in clas-
sifying became more evident, and we can cite classi-
ficatory attempts of Richter (1792), Döbereiner (1817, 
1829), Meinecke (1819), Thenard (1813), Ampère (1816), 
Gmelin (1842), Gibbs (1845), among many others. All 
these attempts are analogical in form, i.e., elements are 
grouped together based on how the author ‘perceives’ 
similarities and differences among the elements’ proper-
ties. There is an obvious challenge for objectivity here, 
as similarity relations of one kind will often take pri-
ority over other similarity relations, depending on the 
authors’ theoretical preferences. None of these attempts 
was a periodic classification, however. 

The concept of analogy was important to the pre-
vailing Naturphilosophie at the time, especially in Ger-
many. Associated with Romanticism, such classificatory 
attempts were motivated by a desire to formulate a sys-
tem of thought capable of encompassing both empirical 
knowledge and a priori, deductive reasoning. Natural 
philosophy has been gradually eliminated from scien-
tific thought; thanks to the rise of empiricism. John 
Locke, for example, argued that the prior formulation of 
hypotheses and the use of analogical reasoning played 
a minor role in science – a view consistent with that of 
experimental philosophy.3 With the decline of specula-
tive philosophy, early classificatory attempts – except 
maybe Döbereiner’s and Gmelin’s – became of little phil-
osophical relevance. Furthermore, there is an element 
of subjectivity motivating the formulation of such clas-
sificatory systems. An author’s philosophical preferences 
will often play a decisive role in what counts as relevant 
in analogical arguments, and therefore on how the ele-
ments are classified. Let us see how. 

For Jeremias Benjamin Richter (1762-1807), once 
a student of Kant, some mathematical relations are a 
priori hypotheses – a view he formulated based on his 



31The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

studies of ponderal and stoichiometric relations. For 
him, any chemical classification had to consider the 
laws (such as the law of definite proportions, which says 
that the ratio by weight of the compounds consumed 
in a chemical reaction stays always the same) according 
to which substances unite to form compounds. Eduard 
Farber4 and Georg Lockemann5 consider Richter to be 
the first chemist to consider mathematical aspects in his 
theories. 

Johann Ludwig Meinecke (1781-1823) reasoned 
from analogy by giving priority to the notion of chemi-
cal affinity, i.e., the tendency exhibited by atoms or 
compounds to combine (chemically react) with certain 
atoms or compounds (of unlike composition) in prefer-
ence to others. This is, of course, a well-established the-
ory today, but during his time ‘affinity’ referred only to 
bodies who reacted intensively, perhaps ‘unavoidably’, 
one with the other. It was this older conception of affin-
ity that inspired Goethe to write his metaphorical novel 
Elective Affinities, in which human passions appear to 
be governed by the laws of chemical affinities, with the 
potential to undermine social institutions such as mar-
riage. 

André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836), criticising what 
he saw as an exaggerated importance given to oxygen, 
attempted a natural classification or order, or even in the 
words of Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800-1884), “a classifica-
tion of bodies into groups based on primary properties 
capable of determining all secondary properties.” Ampere 
used an experimental criterion for the classification of the 
elements, as he focused on “associations and products to 
which elements are known to be committed.”6 

Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (1780-1849), in his “An 
Attempt to Group Elementary Substances according to 
Their Analogies” (1829), ascribed great importance to 
numbers representing the atomic weights of the elements 
forming the four “Döbereiner Triads”. Döbereiner iden-
tified a pattern with the elements of the triads: if you 
order them according to their atomic masses, the aver-
age of the molar mass of the first and third element of 
the triad equals the molar mass of the second element 
(sulphur, selenium and tellurium, for example). On a 
modern periodic table, these elements are stacked verti-
cally. His work started on the same insight that would 
later result in the formulation of the periodic law and 
classification of the elements.

For Leopold Gmelin (1788-1853), another forerun-
ner of the periodic table, physical and chemical relations 
among simple substances ( = elements) are important, 
but the structural basis for their classification lies in 
their electronegativity or positivity, as defined by Jöns 
Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) in his Lehrbuch (1823).

Getting into the details of such early classificatory 
attempts falls outside the scope of this article. But we 
wish to highlight the motivation that guides them all: 
to find a form of representing observations of similari-
ties and order among elements that could be universally 
accepted while containing all the relevant information 
known about the elements, their ‘kinds’ (grouping) and 
ordering. 

This desire for universality sometimes surpasses the 
limits of chemistry. John Alexander Newlands (1837-
1898) formulated in 1864 his “Law of Octaves”, accord-
ing to which the ordering of the elements accruing to 
increasing  atomic weight reveals a periodic pattern of 
similarity after each interval of seven elements. New-
lands’ detection of periodicity was overlooked possibly 
because of the analogy he drew between chemistry and 
the musical scale, thought to be naïve and distracting. 
Striving for universality, Newlands tried to force all 
known elements to fit into his octaves – but some new 
discoveries (heavy elements) escaped the pattern. Also, 
James Blake (1815-1893) went beyond chemistry when he 
attempted to classify some elements based on their phar-
macological effects (1848).7 While such attempts were 
not well received, if one thinks of kinds as being natu-
ral, and not socially constructed, there is no reason to 
assume any periodicity would confine itself to conven-
tional disciplinary boundaries. 

THE PERCEPTION OF THE PERIODIC TABLE

Let us now focus on the mainstream periodic tables 
of Dimitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) and Lothar Meyer 
(1830-1895). Mendeleev ordered the elements accord-
ing to their increasing atomic mass. He placed elements 
underneath other elements with similar chemical behav-
iour. For example, he placed sodium underneath lithi-
um because both exhibited similar chemical behaviour: 
shiny and soft metals which react promptly with oxygen 
and violently with water. 

Sometimes the atomic mass of an element would not 
be in the right order to put it in the group of elements 
with similar behaviour. He placed a question mark 
(?) next to its symbol to indicate he was uncertain the 
atomic mass had been measured correctly. Some other 
times the next heaviest element would not display the 
properties expected of the next element in the table, and 
he thought important to only group together elements 
with similar properties. He postulated the existence 
of an unknown element to occupy that place, and left 
blanks, allowing for (temporary) holes for undiscovered 
elements in the table. Mendeleev used dashes (-) to indi-



32 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

cate the predicted mass of the element to be discovered. 
It was precisely this abductive reasoning that allowed for 
the future discovery of gallium (1875) and germanium 
(1882), for example, to be accommodated by the table. 
Germanium’s fit in its group and its behavioural contrast 
with neighbouring elements gave Mendeleev’s classifica-
tion strong empirical support. As Kemp puts it: “Mende-
leev’s periodic table permitted him to systematise crucial 
chemical data. But its real triumph was as an exercise in 
theoretical modelling, allowing the prediction of the dis-
covery of previously unknown elements.”8 

The table formulated by Mendeleev is a tour de force 
in terms of resilience. Since its first appearance 150 
years ago the table has been able to accommodate the 
discovery of new elements (lanthanides), and groups of 
elements (noble gases, transuranic and transfermic ele-
ments). New theories and philosophical positions did not 
affect the solidity of Mendeleev’s formulation, nor did 
the revolutionary empirical discoveries since the end of 
the nineteenth century: the discoveries of atomic divis-
ibility and subatomic particles, radioactivity, artificial 
transmutation, and innovations generated by quantum 
mechanics. It is certainly this capacity to accommodate 
(and help predict) novelties, and withstand theoretical 
criticism, that gave Mendeleev’s periodic table its iconi- 
city and universal appeal. Eventually, it became a defini-
tive representation of elemental periodicity. 

It is interesting to note that none of the previous 
proposals for classifying the elements had more reper-
cussion outside their context of creation than Mend-
eleev’s. Its high degree of empirical adequacy gave Men-
deleev’s systematization the status of scientific law (Men-
deleev’s Periodic Law). Such status was later corroborat-
ed by what is now known as Moseley’s Law (1913). Up 
until Moseley’s work, the atomic number of an element 
was just its place in the table, and it was not associated 
with, or determined by, any known measurable physical 
property. But Moseley demonstrated that the frequen-
cies of certain characteristic x-rays emitted by atoms 
are approximately proportional to the square of the ele-
ment’s atomic number. This discovery also supported 
Antonius Van den Broek’s (1870-1926)  and Niels Bohr’s 
atomic model, according to which the atomic number is 
the same as the number of positive charges in the atom’s 
nucleus. It is precisely this degree of consilience, i.e. this 
‘jumping together’ (convergence) of evidence originated 
from different, unrelated sources, that help explain Men-
deleev’s success in formulating a definitive and universal 
representation of elemental periodicity. 

The motivation for drawing a table of the elements 
was to find a way of representing them that could be 
universally accepted. Representations that were only 

based on analogies – and did not constitute scientific 
laws – did not achieve this objective. The discovery of 
periodicity, followed by Mendeleev’s insight when group-
ing the elements according to their similar properties 
while allowing for gaps, did achieve universality and, 
ultimately, iconicity. In part, such iconicity is derived 
from the table’s widespread use as a teaching tool. It is 
widely used by teachers to aid students with the abstrac-
tions necessary for a proper understanding of chemistry. 
Abstractions such as the ordering of a periodic system, 
systematization of possessed knowledge, prediction and 
projections involving new discoveries, chemical proper-
ties, correction of data, and finally understanding of the 
macro and microcosmos in terms of atoms, molecules 
and substances. 

So, what we mean by the universality of the periodic 
table goes beyond geographic universality. It is endur-
ance in time and space, and unity of meaning and form, 
of sign and concept. The universality of the periodic 
table of the elements is so pervading, that it is even capa-
ble of connecting intellectual ideas and human passions. 
In the words of S. Alvarez: “The periodic table of ele-
ments is the agora where art, science and culture meet to 
dialogue about matter, light, history, language and life. It 
is an extraordinary tool that allows us to find the con-
nections between humanistic culture and science.”9

The iconic table has a variety of uses: 
- as a teaching tool;
- as a heuristic method for scientific practice;
- as an aid to classify and preserve chemical knowl-

edge;
- as a theoretical foundation for the understanding of 

chemistry; 
- as a research tool for other sciences, such as miner-

alogy; 
- as a tool for the popularisation of chemistry;
- as an aesthetic component in the corpus of chemical 

knowledge;
- as a factor of integration between science and the 

Humanities;
- as a pop-cultural object.

MEYER’S AND MENDELEEV’S DIDACTIC PURPOSES

Both Mendeleev and Meyer developed their periodic 
tables confessedly for didactic purposes – the ordering 
of the contents - in writing their textbooks Principles 
of Chemistry (1869) and The Modern Theories of Chem-
istry (1864), respectively. Lothar Meyer’s Die modernen 
Theorien der Chemie und Die Bedeutung für die Chemis-
che Statik (Maruschke & Berendt, Breslau, 1864) is very 



33The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

concise. From the outset, the author makes it clear that 
he intends to systematise and order, among all avail-
able knowledge, those he considers more fundamental 
(greater reliability and precision). The starting point is 
the Berthollet Essai de statique chimique (1804). Meyer 
also accepted Dalton’s atomic theory and some reduc-
tionism. As he writes: “The development followed by 
chemistry has brought with it the necessity of abstract-
ing every theoretical point of view from a great deal of 
widely scattered detail.”10 

Speculations about the cause and essence of phe-
nomena are various, and often conflicting points of view 
coexist.

What theories that remain and which ones will be 
rejected is a decision that belongs only to the opinion 
of today’s active chemists, and only exceptionally and 
fragmentary in their writings [as the literature overesti-
mates the amount of disagreement]. The struggle for the 
systematic ordering of chemistry’s body of knowledge 
seems to be long over.11

 In Meyer’s view, the long-lasting dispute on whether 
the properties of a compound depend on its nature or on 
the arrangement of its components seems to be solved 
to the satisfaction of both parties, for probably no one 
in the right mind would categorically reject the atomic 
theory. The didactic aspect to which we refer in the 
text of Meyer is the systematisation in function of the 
choice of the most appropriate hypotheses for a rational 
exposition of the problems of chemistry. Meyer keeps a 
hypothesis only so long as it is useful. 

Let us now focus on the didactic purpose that led 
Mendeleev to elaborate his classification to better order 
the contents of his Principles of Chemistry (1869/1871). 
When in 1867 he succeeded Alexander Voskresensky 
(1808-1880) as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the 
University of St. Petersburg, Mendeleev wrote: “I began 
to write [the Principles] when I started to lecture on 
inorganic chemistry at the university after Voskresen-
sky and when, having looked through all the books, I 
did not find anything to recommend to students.”12 This 
direct association between Mendeleev’s Table and his 
Principles of Chemistry was carefully examined by Boni-
faty M. Kedrov (1903-1985). 

In another analysis, Masanori Kaji (1956-2016) also 
considered social and scientific factors as motivations for 
the table’s formulation. Kaji identified a close relation-
ship between the periodic law and Mendeleev’s concept 
of ‘element’. Mendeleev participated in the Congress of 
Karlsruhe in 1860, and the ideas of Stanislao Canniz-
zaro (1826-1910) exposed there exercised great influence 
on his chemical thought. He accepted the atomic theory 
(with certain exceptions, for there were exceptions to the 

law of constant proportions), allowing him to establish 
a relation between the properties of the elements and 
the atomic masses, the origin of the “periodic law”. Fol-
lowing in the footsteps of Cannizzaro, Mendeleev dis-
tinguished between “simple bodies” (material entities) 
and “element” (abstract entity). He would later refer to 
an element as a “chemical individual”, highlighting the 
existence of multiple elements, consistent with his view 
of natural diversity (as opposed to there being a unity of 
matter). 

In his “Faraday Lecture” (1889), Mendeleev claimed 
that the periodic law had been arrived at by inductive 
reasoning, i.e. “a direct outcome of the stock of gener-
alisations and established facts which had accumulated 
by the end of the decade 1860-1870: it is an embodiment 
of those data in a more or less systematic expression.”13 
Clearly, the more data the better basis for any generali-
sation. And “sound generalisations – together with the 
relics of those which have proved to be untenable – pro-
mote scientific productivity, and ensure the luxurious 
growth of science under the influence of rays emanat-
ing from the centres of scientific energy [scientific socie-
ties].”14 

As for those who at the time hoped the periodic law 
would lend support to the notion of a unity of matter 
(such as Berthelot), Mendeleev showed little sympathy:

…the periodic law, based as it is on the solid and whole-
some ground of experimental research, has been evolved 
independently of any conception as to the nature of the 
elements; it does not in the least originate in the idea of 
a unique matter; and it has no historical connection with 
that relic of the torments of classical thought (…) None of 
the advocates of a unique matter has ever tried to explain 
the law from the standpoint of ideas taken from a remote 
antiquity when it was found convenient to admit the exist-
ence of many gods – and of a unique matter.15 

In this lecture, Mendeleev also defended the use of 
conceptual structuring as an important complement 
to the experimental method, foreshadowing much of 
the 20th century preoccupation in placing “agreement 
between theory and experiment” at the centre of sci-
entific thought and method. Much of the iconicity of 
Mendeleev’s table lies of course in its success in visually 
representing an agreement between an inductively iden-
tified regularity of nature and vast empirical chemical 
data. If properly used as a teaching tool, as Meyer and 
Mendeleev intended, the very same conceptual structur-
ing would help rid the scientific world of obsolete meta-
physical notions, and guide scientists towards scientific 
progress. 



34 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

THE RECEPTION OF THE TABLE

About the reception of the Periodic Table by differ-
ent scientific communities, Stephen Brush mentions that 
at the end of 19th century there were few and irregular 
citations of the Table. It is therefore difficult to say if it 
was widely accepted by chemists, or if only a specialised 
circle of chemists showed interest in the novelty. Brush 
mentions 236 citations of the Table during the period 
1871-1890: 20 from 1871 to 1875, 72 from 1875 to 1880, 
61 from 1881 to 1885 and 83 from 1885 to 1890. Con-
cerning textbooks, we should not forget that usually 
many years elapse from the original inception of a new 
idea by the author and its inclusion in a textbook: 244 
textbooks were published from 1871 to 1890, but only 76 
of them mention the Periodic Table.16 

First “modern” Periodic Tables were presented in 
Russia and in Germany, and we could suppose that in 
these countries such a powerful instrument would be 
accepted without any restrictions. History shows many 
drawbacks in accepting periodic classification because 
of singularities related to the scientific milieu of the two 
countries. In Russia, as Kaji and Brooks observe, the 
main difficulty was just the fact that the Periodic Table 
was presented by a Russian, deeply immersed in Russian 
intellectual and scientific atmosphere.17 Despite a dispute 
about priorities between Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer 
(caused by Wurtz’s criticism of a German translation of 
one of his books), Russian chemists of German descent 
(Friedrich Beilstein, Victor von Richter, Felix Wreden) 
did much towards the recognition of Mendeleev’s sys-
tem. An early presentation of Mendeleev’s first paper at 
the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences by Nikolai Men-
shutkin (1842-1907) was largely ignored. Nikolai Zinin 
(1812-1880) suggested that Mendeleev should devote 
himself to actual chemical lab work. After months of 
silence, Mendeleev’s ideas began to be discussed in sci-
entific meetings by important Russian chemists: Marko-
vnikov, Butlerov and even Zinin. The first Russian text-
book to include a Periodic Table was Victor von Richter’s 
(1841-1891) “Textbook of Inorganic Chemistry, based 
on most recent theories” (1874). Most later textbooks 
included Mendeleev’s classification. 

In Germa ny, where precursors li ke R ichter, 
Döbereiner, Gmelin, Kremers, Pettenkofer, among oth-
ers, worked on classification before Mendeleev, the 
adoption of a Periodic Table was delayed.18 Karl Seubert 
(1851-1942), Meyer’s colleague in Tübingen, explains this 
delay by a generalised lack of interest by most chemists 
in Inorganic Chemistry, especially issues like “periodic 
classification”: Meyer’s explanations were too short and 
succinct, while Mendeleev’s were deemed too complex 

and included non-chemical knowledge. Rudolf Fittig 
(1835-1910) in Tübingen and Eugen von Gorup-Besanez 
(1817-1878) in Erlangen mention the Periodic Table in 
1873: Fittig in an encyclopaedia article, Gorup-Besanez 
in the 5th edition of his “Lehrbuch der Arnorganischen 
Chemie”. G. Boeck considers Victor von Richter’s Ger-
man translation (1874) as the first German textbook to 
present a Periodic Table. Brush takes the third edition 
of Carl Rammelsberg’s (1813-1899) Grundriss der Che-
mie (Lüderitz, Berlin, 1873; Brush mentions erroneously 
1874) as the first textbook outside Russia to discuss peri-
odicity.19 August Michaelis’ (1847-1916) Ausführliches 
Lehrbuch der Chemie (1878) and Karl Arnold’s (1853-
1929) Repetitorium der Chemie (1885) deserve mention. 
Most of the nineteenth-century college-level textbooks 
don’t include Classification, the famous “Schule der Che-
mie” by Adolph Stoeckhardt (1809-1896), and not even 
the last editions from 1881 (19th) and 1919 (22nd).20 

The introduction of Mendeleev’s table in different 
scientific contexts, in central as well as in peripheral sci-
ence, met some degree of opposition or reluctance. In 
many places, there were already prior classifications and 
tables, some of them with a long tradition and success-
ful in their task in organising the content of textbooks. 
More pragmatic or theoretical scientific schools consid-
ered the efforts of looking for a periodic classification 
as useless. It is necessary to say that before Mendeleev’s 
classification, other classifications, e. g. Thenard’s “arti-
ficial” classification, or “classifications” not even taken 
as such, like that of Berzelius, entered the scientific lit-
erature of several countries: Thenard in the Latin world, 
and Berzelius in Germany. And, finally, some local sci-
entific communities produced their own classifications, 
like those of Lewis Reeve Gibbes (1810-1894) in the Unit-
ed States (published in 1884) or of the Catalan pharma-
cist Josep Antoni Balcels (1777-1857) in Spain (1838).

In Great Britain, not even classifications suggested 
by English chemists, like William Odling (1829-1921), in 
1865, or John Alexander Newlands (1837-1898), in 1864, 
were taken seriously.21 There was little interest in Men-
deleev or Lothar Meyer. But the discovery of gallium 
(1875) by Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912) changed 
the situation. After the awarding of the Royal Society’s 
Davy Medal to Mendeleev and Meyer (1882) there was 
some revival of “Newland’s octaves” (Newland’s Davy 
Medal in 1887), but English scientists had little interest 
in “classifications”, although they produced very impor-
tant empirical data to confirm the “periodic law” as a 
scientific law (the discovery of noble gases, Moseley’s 
work). First texts to include a Periodic Table were those 
of William Allen Miller (1817-1870), “Elements of Chem-
istry” (6th edition, 1876) and George Fownes (1815-1849), 



35The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

revised by his assistant Henry Watts (1815-1884) in 1877. 
S. Brush mentions Thomas Edward Thorpe (1845-1925) 
as author of the first English language textbook inclu-
ding Mendeleev’s Table (1877).22 

Also in France Mendeleev’s table remained almost 
unnoticed, a “non-event” in the history of French chem-
istry in the opinion of B. Bensaude-Vincent.23 But in the 
period of precursors of a classification we must remem-
ber contributions of Thenard (1813) and Ampère (1816), 
Dumas’ numeric table (1851), as well as the exotic “tellu-
ric screw” of Chancourtois (1862) – the “screw” connects 
chemistry and geology, another example of the univer-
sality of the periodic table. The strong influence of Posi-
tivism and refusal to accept atomism by influential sci-
entists like Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907) explain why 
most French chemists looked for alternative classificato-
ry systems, ignoring Mendeleev (the “equivalentists”).24 
Berthelot agrees that Mendeleev’s Table may have some 
practical utility, but for him, it is not a “law” or a theo-
retical argument, as this would undermine the empiri-
cal, logic and positive bases of science,25 and could also 
lead to a return to mysticism. In 1885, in his Les Origi-
nes de l’Alchimie, Berthelot discusses the periodic sys-
tem as an “artificial construction based on vague theo-
retical arguments”.26 Among the exceptions are notables 
like Charles Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884), who dedicates 
an entire chapter of his “Atomic Theory” to Mendeleev, 
Edouard Grimaux (1835-1900) and Paul Sabatier (1854-
1941). After 1890, Mendeleev’s system began to gain 
some sympathy: Paul Schutzenberger (1829-1897) pub-
lished the first French textbook containing the peri-
odic classification (Traité de Chimie Générale, 1880). 
Georges Urbain (1872-1938) was perhaps the first to try 
to explain the opposition of equivalentists and atomists 
(1934).27 Mendeleev himself was not truly an atomist, he 
used “equivalent weight” instead of “atomic weight”.28 In 
France, there was not only the opposition between posi-
tivists-rationalists but also the opposition between “nat-
ural” classifications (Ampère, Dumas) and “artificial” 
classifications (Thenard). Differently from what hap-
pened in Great Britain and in the United States, the dis-
covery of gallium did not contribute to the acceptance of 
Mendeleev’s ideas: Lecoq insisted that his discovery was 
due only to his skills as a spectroscopist and had noth-
ing to do with Mendeleev’s table ‘blanks’.29 

A recently unified Italy presented a fertile soil for 
the introduction of new scientific ideas. In the case of 
the Periodic Table this is exemplified by the almost 
immediate acceptance of Mendeleev’s system by impor-
tant Italian chemists, such as Augusto Piccini (1854-
1905), who translated Richter’s textbook into Italian 
(1885), and Giacomo Ciamician (1857-1922). It was 

accepted that former classifications were based on less 
reliable properties.30

In Spain, Thenard’s text (Traité de Chimie Élémen-
taire, 1813) and classification were largely used. The-
nard’s classification was also present in other French 
textbooks translated into Spanish, like that of Mateo 
Orfila (1787-1853). There is no reference to Mendeleev in 
the extensive text published in 1875 by Rafael Sáez Pala-
cios (1808-1883), but there is such reference in a book 
(1880) by Santiago Bonilla Mirat (1844-1899).31 Eugenio 
Mascareñas (1853-1934) published in 1884 in Barce-
lona “Introdución al estudio de la Química”, discussing 
Mendeleev’s work and presenting his own table.32 Theo-
retical and speculative studies on periodicity were done 
by Ángel del Campo y Cerdán (1881-1944), suggesting 
interactions of protons with protons and with neutrons 
as the origin of periodicity (1927): “The properties of the 
elements seem to be simultaneously a periodic function 
of the masses of their atoms and the electric charge of 
their nuclei, that is, of the atomic masses and the atomic 
numbers.”33 As a consequence of Bohr’s studies, Miguel 
Catalán Sanudo (1894-1957) presented a table relating 
periodicity to spectra (1923).34

Modern Portuguese science has its beginnings with 
the renovation of the University of Coimbra by the Mar-
quis de Pombal (1699-1782) in 1772. A new reform fol-
lowed in 1841, and since 1870 a strong influence of posi-
tivistic thought in scientific practice can be observed. 
Antônio Luís Ferreira Girão (1823-1876) did not men-
tion Mendeleev in his Teoria dos Átomos e os Limites 
da Ciência (published 1879), but his student Agostinho 
de Sousa published (1880) in French La Loi Périodique, 
the first reference to Mendeleev in Portugal. This was 
later repeated in the 2nd edition (1895) of a textbook by 
Antônio Joaquim Ferreira da Silva (1853-1923).35

In Northern Europe, the reception of Mendeleev’s 
Table occurred in different contexts. In Sweden, Berze-
lius’ Treatise on Chemistry (1818) presented a classifica-
tion of the elements based on their electronegative or 
electropositive character. In Denmark Julius Thomsen 
(1826-1909) worked out his own table (1887, 1895), in 
which he tried to turn more visible the relation between 
periodicity and atomic structure – a subject studied lat-
er by another Danish scientist, Niels Bohr (1885-1962). 
Lundgren suggests that in Sweden the reception of Men-
deleev’s system was by no means dramatic: no opposi-
tion, but also no enthusiasm.36 

Swedish chemistry shows no difference before and 
after Mendeleev, it was a pragmatic and practical chem-
istry, with a reduced theoretical component (a theoreti-
cal revival took place with Svante Arrhenius after 1884). 
According to Lundgren, Sweden’s only contribution to 



36 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

periodicity and the classification of the elements, Lars 
F. Nilson’s (1840-1899) discovery of scandium (1879), 
was seen as an analytical problem. In Denmark, the 
situation was similar – a pragmatic, practical chemistry, 
some theory (Thomsen).37 In Kragh’s opinion, Thomsen 
presented in 1865 one of the “many incomplete anticipa-
tions of the periodic system”, but in 1880 most Danish 
chemists already knew Mendeleev’s and Meyer’s sys-
tems. Odin Christensen (1851-1914) wrote the first Dan-
ish paper (1880) and textbook about the Periodic Sys-
tem (Elements of Inorganic Chemistry, 1890). The case 
of Norway is in some sense sui generis – linked to Swe-
den since 1814 but de facto independent since 1905, the 
country used its own chemical terminology and had a 
small but important scientific community (Peter Waage, 
Kristian Birkeland). Mendeleev’s system had little effect 
on chemical practice and was introduced relatively late, 
with a textbook (1888) by Thorstein Hallanger Hiortdahl 
(1839-1925).38

A situation which deserves a wider and detailed 
study, even outside chemistry, is the reception of Men-
deleev’s periodic system in scientific communities 
which used their own language and had their own sci-
entific evolution but were not independent nations at 
Mendeleev’s times. This is the case of Czech and Croa-
tian chemical communities, politically and economi-
cally linked to Austria-Hungary until 1918. Somewhat 
different is the Polish chemical community, spread 
throughout Russia, Austria and Germany, they did not 
constitute a united group of chemists. Using their own 
languages, terminologies and nomenclatures, not only 
in science but also in literature, philosophy and the 
humanities, Czech and Croatian scientists saw in Rus-
sia a leader, and positive reception of Mendeleev’s system 
was an a priori decision.39 

Use of one’s own language in intellectual activities 
created and fortified emerging nationalisms in the 19th 
century. In the present Czech Republic,40 until 1918 Aus-
tria’s Kingdom of Bohemia, nationalism forced the crea-
tion in 1869 of a Polytechnic School (independent from 
the German Polytechnic) and the separation of the old 
Prague University (1348) into a German and a Czech 
University (1882). A textbook authored by Vojtech Safa-
rik (1829-1902) was the first to mention the Periodic 
Table in the Czech language, but in Strbanova’s opinion, 
the most important defender of Mendeleev’s system in 
Czech lands was his personal friend Bohuslav Braun-
er (1855-1935). In the face of growing russophylia and 
anti-German sentiment, Brauner defended Mendeleev’s 
ideas and vindicated the replacement of German scien-
tific influence in Czech lands by Slavic influence. This 
case illustrates how nationalism and xenophobia may 

constitute a threat to the autonomy of science. There 
was some resistance to the acceptance of Mendeleev’s 
work by Safarik (a Slovak), and by Jaroslav Formanek 
(1864-1936). Both wanted a ‘natural’ classification of Ele-
ments. Ambiguous behaviour of Czech intellectuals may 
be seen in Cermak ’s germanisation of his name, Gus-
tav von Tschermak (1836-1927). Tschermak presents his 
own periodic table (1859), the first to draw attention to 
‘blanks’.41

In Croatia, until 1918 part of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire, the reception of the Periodic Table was more 
straightforward.42 Since 1861 school textbooks were pub-
lished in Croatian, and since 1873 there was a University 
in Zagreb (then called Agram), but only in 1901, an aca-
demic textbook by Julije Domac (1853-1928) presented 
Mendeleev’s system. A former text by Pavao Zulic (1831-
1922), even in his second edition from 1877, omitted the 
periodic classification. The acceptance of Mendeleev’s 
system in Croatia is largely due to the Czech chemist 
Gustav Janecek (1848-1929), whose text on the subject 
(1914) goes back to Döbereiner and other precursors.

Not only Czechs and Croats, but also other nation-
alities lived in polyethnic Austria-Hungary, maintaining 
their language, traditions and many centuries of their 
own cultural activities, like Hungarians. Since the Aus-
gleich from 1867, between the Emperor and the Hungar-
ian government, Hungarian became the official language 
in schools, and Karoly Than (1834-1908) was designated 
chemistry professor at Budapest University. Than was 
the author of the most popular chemistry textbook in 
Hungary, Elements of Experimental Chemistry (1898), in 
which he presented Mendeleev’s classification and sys-
tematisation.43 

At the same time, in Serbia, a Slavic country de facto 
independent since 1867, with a University in Belgrade 
(1905), there was modest chemical activity. Frequently 
repeated information about a first non-Russian textbook 
on a Periodic System written by Serbian chemist Sima 
Lozanic (1846-1935) in 1874 (Chemistry as Viewed by 
Modern Theories) is incorrect. Lozanic included Men-
deleev’s System only in the second edition of his book 
(1897).44

Like Serbia, Bulgaria, another Slavic nation de fac-
to independent since 1876 (Treaty of San Stefano) had 
modest scientific activity. A recent essay by Borislav 
Toshev suggests that all Bulgarian publications on Men-
deleev are hagiographic, with the only exception being 
professor Dimitar Balarev’s (1885-1964) Significance of 
the Periodic System, 1950).45 Balarev himself designed a 
three-dimensional form of the Periodic Table.46

It is difficult to state precisely which Latin-American 
country first received the periodic system. Latin Ameri-



37The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

can historiography rarely refers to science, and when it 
does, it pays close attention to institutional history, or bio-
graphical data. Equally difficult to obtain information on 
Latin American contributions to the periodic system. It 
is however easy to ascertain that from the 1940s interest 
in the periodic table of the elements has spiked. It’s great 
potential as a teaching tool was the main driving factor, as 
can be seen in Ceccon and Berner’s monograph.47 

The first record of the periodic system in Latin Amer-
ica is probably due to Álvaro Joaquim de Oliveira (1840-
1922), professor at the Rio de Janeiro Polytechnic School. 
In his textbook Apontamentos de Química (1883) he criti-
cally examines the table under the influence of positivist 
dogmas.48 Oliveira was one of the founders of the Brazil-
ian Positivist Society (1876), but his views and interpreta-
tion of Mendeleev’s work met strong opposition from his 
peers,49 prompting another leading Brazilian positivist, 
Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (1855-1927), to publish an 
alternative textbook, La Philosophie Chimique (1898).50 

There were different versions of the periodic table 
in use by Brazilian teachers. We mention, because of its 
originality, a contribution presented in 1949 by Alcindo 
Flores Cabral (1907-1983), professor of chemistry at the 
School of Agriculture in Pelotas. Cabral’s spiral classifi-
cation, elegant in its symmetry and use of colours, made 
use of what he called the ‘differentiating electron’.51 
Another formulation of the table (1950) worth mention-
ing was made by professor Werner Gustav Krauledat 
(1908-1990), from Rio de Janeiro State University. 

In Spanish speaking Latin America, a very success-
ful table was designed in 1952 (and revised in 1962) by 
Gil Chaverri Rodrigues (1921-2005), a physicist and 
chemist from Costa Rica. His table follows a logical 
sequence derived from the sequence of atomic numbers 
and has done well in presenting lanthanides and acti-
nides without disrupting the sequence of elements.52 
Like Cabral, Chaverri lectured at an agricultural school, 
which showed a widespread interest in periodic classifi-
cations. 

Another successful table was that of Peruvian chem-
ist Oswaldo Baca Mendoza (1908-1962), from Cuzco 
University, Generic Laws of the Chemical Elements. A 
New Periodic System (1953), inspired by the theories 
of his Spanish teacher A. del Campo y Cerdán.53 Julio 
António Gutierrez (b. 1955) continued Mendoza’s work 
(Sistema Periódico Armônico and Leyes Genéticas de los 
Elementos, 2004) on the ‘quantification’ of Mendeleev’s 
table. Spaniard António García-Banús (1888-1955), crea-
tor of the great mural table in Barcelona, immigrated 
in 1938 to Colombia (1938) and lectured at the Bogotá 
National University, where he got involved with the peri-
odic system. 

In Uruguay, a chemical institute was created at the 
Faculty of Medicine in Montevideo (1908), where stud-
ies on periodicity largely focused on using the table as 
a teaching tool. During the decades of 1930 and 1940, 
there were some original ideas about the best position 
for the actinides in the table, and during the seventies, 
there were discussions about a new spiral design of the 
periodic system, but without a successful outcome.54

Western science found its way to Japan through 
Dutch textbooks used in “Dutch Studies”: before the 
Meiji period, the Netherlands were the only western 
nation to have consistent contact with Japan. The first 
Japanese chemistry textbook, Seimi Kaiso, was written 
by Utagawa Yoan (1798-1846) around 1830 and included 
parts from Lavoisier’s treatise.55 Robert William Atkin-
son (1850-1929), an English chemist, the first western 
chemistry teacher in Japan, was interested in periodic 
classification but preferred Lothar Meyer’s table. Naoki-
shi Matsui (1857-1911), a professor in Tokyo, was the first 
to mention Mendeleev in a paper (1882), and Toyokichi 
Takamatsu (1852-1931) was probably the first to mention 
it in a textbook. Research on the subject was also done 
by Kikunae Ikeda (1864-1936) and Masataka Ogawa 
(1865-1930), the former from a theoretical point of view, 
and the latter in an empirical context.56

Of notable interest was the difficult introduction of 
the periodic table in Turkey. Two problems contributed 
to making this task complicated: an absolute lack of 
modern chemistry texts and the use of Arabic symbols 
for letters and numbers – Arabic texts are written from 
right to left, which turns writing formulas, equations 
and reactions even more difficult. Despite these diffi-
culties, Vasil Naum (1856-1915) included Mendeleev’s 
system in his book Medical Chemistry, with names of 
elements and numbers in Arabic characters (the official 
language of the Ottoman Empire). In 1914, the Turkish 
government decided to modernise its higher education 
system, and from 1915 to 1918 a group of German chem-
ists lectured in Constantinople, headed by Fritz Arndt 
(1885-1969) – Gustav Fester (1886-1975) and Kurt Hoe-
sch (1882-1932) were the other members of the mission. 
After facilities and equipment, Arndt’s priority was the 
production of textbooks in Turkish language (Arndt was 
fluent in Turkish), and in his First Medical Experiments 
(1917) we find the second Turkish periodic table, with 
Latin characters used for the elements and their sym-
bols, but with the text itself remaining in Arabic, read 
from right to left.57

In the United States, we distinguish between the 
reception of Mendeleev’s system and the reception of 
several other classifications, some of them proposed by 
American chemists, a situation similar to that observed 



38 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

in Great-Britain and France. In 1854, Harvard profes-
sor Josiah Parsons Cooke (1827-1894) presented before 
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston 
a lecture Numeric Relations between Atomic Weights 
and some Ideas about Classification of Elements, con-
sidered by Edgar Fahs Smith (1854-1928) as the first 
serious attempt in studying this subject (1914).58 Gus-
tavus Hinrichs (1836-1923) published his textbook in 
1874, but instead of Mendeleev’s system he included 
his own spiral classification (worked out in 1867), not 
even mentioning Mendeleev’s formulation.59 Lewis 
Reeves Gibbes (1820-1896) published in 1886 a Synopti-
cal Table of Chemical Elements, using an ‘inverted’ pro-
cedure with respect to Mendeleev’s, arranging a great 
number of chemical proprieties and deriving from 
them a periodicity of atomic weights.60 Stephen Brush 
could not find a single American textbook discussing 
Mendeleev’s ideas until Lecoq’s discovery of gallium 
in 1875. In 1877, Ira Remsen (1846-1927), from Johns 
Hopkins University, published his Principles of Theo-
retical Chemistry, the first text in the United States to 
mention Mendeleev.61 

THE TABLE AS A RESEARCH TOOL

Mendeleev`s Periodic Table contains ‘ blanks’ 
(though he was not the first to postulate their existence); 
all periodic tables presented after Mendeleev’s also con-
tained ‘blanks’. The desire to replace such blanks with 
new discoveries strongly motivated chemical research. 

The increasing number of elements discovered 
since 1800 (thanks to improved analytical techniques), 
the degree of uncertainty associated with many physi-
cal properties (such as atomic weights), the dispute on 
what properties to use as criteria of periodisation, and 
the inability to forecast how many elements remained 
to be discovered, all illustrate how the study of the 
‘blanks’ became a powerful centraliser of experiments 
and discoveries. In one way or another, research activity 
revolved around the question: How many elements are 
there, and how can we best order them? 

Let us detail two recent events in the history of 
chemistry related to ‘blanks’ in the periodic table: the 
troubled hunt for mysterious Element 43 (technetium, 
masurium), and the controversial discovery (1923) of 
hafnium, Element 72. It was precisely the discovery 
of three of the elements foreseen by Mendeleev (three 
‘blanks’) which promoted the acceptance of Mendeleev’s 
system: (eka-aluminium or gallium by Lecoq de Boisba-
udran in 1875, ekaboron or scandium by Nilson in 1879, 
and ekasilicon or germanium by Winkler in 1886). 

The epistemological status of these discoveries is still 
a matter of contention among philosophers of chemistry. 
Mendeleev considered the existence of nine unknown 
elements (including gallium, scandium and germanium), 
as well as the need to correct the atomic weights of five 
elements (including beryllium, tellurium and uranium). 
And as put by Mendeleev himself, “the confirmation of 
a law is possible only by deducing consequences from it, 
and by justifying those consequences by experimental 
proof.”62 But as highlighted by Scerri, the number of ver-
ified predictions equals the number of predictions which 
turned out to be false, so not a good score for the con-
firmation of the law of periodicity.63 However, despite 
fewer than optimal numbers, Mendeleev’s table had a 
predictive ability which was lacking in alternative for-
mulations, such as the tables by Odling, Newlands, and 
Lothar Meyer, hence Mendeleev’s eventual widespread 
acceptance. 

How can the periodic table guide research? A simple 
example: by the position of the ‘gaps’ predicted by Men-
deleev in the Table, one can predict in which minerals 
these new elements should be sought. In the 10th series, 
Group VII, from his second table (1872), Mendeleev 
predicted the existence of two elements still unknown 
below manganese, that would have atomic masses 100 
and 190, respectively. He named them ekamanganese 
and dwi-manganese; eka- and dwi- are Sanskrit prefix-
es, meaning ‘first’ and ‘second’. Mendeleev was a friend 
of German Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Otto von 
Böhtlingk (1815-1904), his colleague in St. Petersburg, 
which may explain his use of Sanskrit (Mendeleev did 
not know the language). Speculations on a possible anal-
ogy between the periodicity of the elements and the pho-
nemes of Sanskrit are fantasies. 

Elements with atomic masses 100 and 190 were 
really discovered: technetium (atomic Number 43) and 
rhenium (atomic number 75). For over two centuries 
chemical literature accumulated innumerable cases of 
spurious, never confirmed discoveries, i.e. ‘discoveries’ 
of already known elements or of mixtures of elements.64 
Unguided research rarely led to new discoveries. But the 
discoveries mentioned above were achieved by using the 
positions of the missing elements in Mendeleev’s table 
as a guide. The most striking example of such a ‘guided’ 
discovery is the discovery of hafnium (1923) by Gyorgy 
de Hévesy (1885-1966) and Dirk Coster (1889-1950). 
Hafnium was Mendeleev’s ekazirconium and was effec-
tively obtained from zirconium silicate (ZrSO4) extract-
ed from the mineral alvite. Mendeleev’s prediction was 
in this case strengthened by Bohr’s theoretical argu-
ments, and by the discovery of the new metal by miner-
alogist Victor Goldschmidt (1888-1947) in 1925. 



39The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

The association between prediction and discovery is 
not obvious in the case of elements 43 and 75. Although 
Walther Noddack (1893-1960), Ida Tacke (1896-1978) and 
Otto Berg (1873-1939) published an article “Die Manga-
nelemente” (1925), rhenium was actually discovered in 
the minerals molybdenite (MoS2, today the most impor-
tant source of rhenium), columbite [(Fe,Mn)(Nb,Ta)O6] 
and gadolinite, and in platinum minerals.65 Masurium, 
the supposed element 43, was never obtained from nat-
ural sources (there is a recent controversy on this issue), 
but allegedly identified spectroscopically in molybdenite. 
Properties of technetium and rhenium are more simi-
lar to molybdenum (element 42) than to manganese, but 
there are diagonal relations in the periodic table.

Chemists, historians and philosophers of science 
questioned the predictive capacity of the periodic table. 
Lothar Meyer doubted the possibility of making pre-
dictions based on classification. After the formulation 
(1913) by Henry Moseley (1887-1915) of what would be 
known as ‘Moseley’s Law’, some have questioned wheth-
er these predictions had heuristic status since Mend-
eleev’s times, or if it was Moseley’s Law that was respon-
sible for any heuristic value ascribed to the periodic 
system. Moseley predicted the existence of only 14 rare 
earths, one of them still unknown (element 61), and of 
six elements to be discovered – six ‘blanks’, in the peri-
odic system (elements with atomic numbers 43, 61, 72, 
75, 85 and 87). The ‘criticism’, while reasonable, seems 
exaggerated. One can justifiably say that Moseley’s law 
and the discoveries that followed from it added to the 
stock of empirical data that ultimately offers support to 
the prior discovery of elemental periodicity. 

The periodic table has also seen many uses in non-
strictly chemical research. It is employed in fields such 
as mineralogy, geology and geochemistry.66 The table 
itself benefited from the search for new minerals and still 
unknown elements in these minerals. Before ionic rays 
were known, isomorphism and so-called isomorphic sub-
stitutions were important for the ‘periodisation’ in min-
eralogy. This can be seen in the table by Vladimir Ver-
nadsky (1863-1945), of the University of Moscow, consid-
ered one of the ‘fathers’ of geochemistry. The introduc-
tion of magnitudes such as atomic mass, atomic number 
and ionic radius allowed Norwegian mineralogist Victor 
Goldschmidt (1888-1947) to establish the substitutions in 
mineral series, such as the feldspars (Goldschmidt’s rule).

PERIODICITY AND SOME PHILOSOPHICAL 
CONSIDERATIONS 

In 1869, Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, the model of all 
tables to come, appeared. Mendeleev’s representation is 

not only the prototype, so often modified, of the record 
of all subsequent tables, but its own theoretical basis (the 
periodic law) – is the basis for all later tables. Mend-
eleev’s classification should not be regarded, however, as 
the crowning of precursor classifications – the Russian 
chemist’s table is grounded, malgré lui, on philosophi-
cal assumptions. Mendeleev initially did not consider 
philosophy important for the formation of chemists, but 
during his professional life, especially after the Congress 
of Karlsruhe (1860), he became himself a philosopher of 
chemistry. 

His intellectual positions are original and difficult 
to fit into some philosophical school. But it is general-
ly accepted that later in life, as an old man, Mendeleev 
would accept something like Kantian epistemology: 
the belief that humankind, even when well-equipped 
with the tools of science, was unable to comprehend the 
“thing-in-itself ”, i.e. substances as mind-independent 
entities. In fact, he would say that substances can only 
ever be studied by “their properties or by their relations 
to our organs of sense and to other substances and bod-
ies” although he clearly accepted substances’ independ-
ent existence “for there is something in its nature which 
is self-existent.”67 

Such a view was also dear to Goethe, namely, that 
experience is, to an important extent subjective – every 
scientist experiences phenomena in a way that is only 
his/her, not being able to see through the eyes of some-
one else. It is according to this Kantian framework that 
Mendeleev considers himself to be a realist (although it 
must be said that there is a less prominent interpretation 
of Kantian ontology which places the German philoso-
pher closer to idealism). According to Vucinich:

To Mendeleev being a realist meant denying the onto-
logical unity of the universe and rejecting revolution as a 
source of natural and social change. It also meant recognis-
ing not only the powers of science but also its limitations. 
But above all, it meant adopting a philosophical outlook 
untrammelled by metaphysics.68 

So, despite being a self-declared realist of some sort, 
positivists, nihilists and Marxists alike all attempted, 
in vain, to exhibit Mendeleev’s ideas were in agreement 
with their intellectual frameworks (and political agen-
das) and count him as one of their own. 

Several of the periodical classifications presented 
during the nineteenth-century show relations with phi-
losophy, relations only sometimes explicit. But it was 
Mendeleev’s periodic system that most aroused the 
attention of philosophers of science, not forgetting the 
‘philosophy of science’ implicit in the work of Mend-
eleev himself – which for some is empirical, for others 



40 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

theoretical, or even empirical/theoretical). Also, his table 
is sometimes considered just a classification based on 
experimental data, and sometimes a representation of a 
law or theory.

It is necessary to separate the theoretical bases of 
chemical periodicity together with experimental data 
from the experimental data of the philosophical aspects 
involved in the periodic law and the resulting table. A 
supposed dialectical materialism that would perme-
ate Mendeleev’s science is a fiction by Friedrich Engels 
(1820-1895), for whom the periodic classification was a 
victory of dialectical materialism, an unconscious appli-
cation of Hegel’s law of transformation (though Marx 
explicitly states that his dialectic differs and opposes 
that of Hegel) concerning the transformation of quantity 
into quality. Engels’s analysis of 1890 was made in the 
absence of Mendeleev himself, who never accepted this 
interpretation by Engels and Marx, or even Heraclitus’s 
principle of transformation as a universal principle. 

For Mendeleev, and in accordance with leading ideas 
from his time, “the elements are constituents of nature, 
essentially unique, permanently fixed and genetically dis-
crete, irreducible to a primary matter.”69 Richard Feyn-
man (1918-1988) would later say about something seem-
ing permanently fixed: “To our eyes, our crude eyes, 
nothing is changing, but if we could see it a billion times 
magnified, we could see that from its own point of view 
it is always changing: molecules are leaving the surface, 
molecules are coming back.”70 

Mendeleev, after the discussions at the Karlsruhe 
Congress, approaches the issue later raised by Feynman 
with surprising insight, solving the problem inherent in 
atoms and molecules in three stages; at the macroscop-
ic level, at the microscopic level, and in the relationship 
between the macroscopic and the microscopic. On the 
macroscopic level, it is necessary to distinguish in cur-
rent chemical language between ‘body’ and ‘substance’; 
at the microscopic level, to distinguish between ‘atom’ 
and ‘molecule’; and finally, to establish a relationship 
between the two levels.” He expands on this:

It is evident that water does not contain gaseous oxygen or 
oxygen in the form of ozone; it contains a substance capa-
ble of forming oxygen, ozone and water… It is necessary 
to distinguish the concept of a simple body from that of an 
element. A simple body substance, as we already know, is 
a substance, which taken individually, cannot be altered 
chemically by any means produced up until now or be 
formed through the transformation of any other kinds of 
bodies. An element, on other hand, is an abstract concept; 
it is the material that is contained in a simple body and 
that can, without any change in weight, be converted into 
all the bodies that can be obtained from this simple body. 
A similar definition of an element and the same argument 

for the need to distinguish clearly between an element and 
simple body were later presented in the first part of Princi-
ples.”71

An immediate perception by the senses refers to 
macroscopic phenomena, it is a perception of the trans-
formations that occur in ‘bodies’. But ‘bodies’, necessary 
to understand the transformations that occur, refer to 
the idea of   ‘substance’ (= element). As Gaston Bachelard 
(1884-1962) would later say, the experiment never puts 
us in contact with the ‘substance’, but without the notion 
of ‘substance’ it is impossible to understand experiments 
(which refer to ‘bodies’). It proceeds at the microscopic 
level, differentiating atom from molecule: 

We call a ‘molecule’ the quantity of ‘substance’ that reacts 
with other molecules, and which occupies in the vapor state 
volume equal to two weights of hydrogen [...] ‘atoms’ are 
the smallest quantities of chemical masses indivisible from 
the elements, which form the molecules of simple and com-
pound bodies.72 

For more than 60 years our high school teachers, 
capturing the essence of Mendeleev’s argument, taught 
students that ‘atom’ is the smallest part of an element 
that conserves its properties, and ‘molecule’ is the small-
est amount of a substance that retains its properties. 
In a similar fashion, ‘element’ is the set of all atoms of 
the same atomic number (atomic weight, in the time of 
Mendeleev): the simple substances coal, graphite and 
diamond are formed by atoms of the element carbon. 
Mendeleev’s simple but ingenious innovation related 
macroscopic and microscopic levels: 

A simple body is something material endowed with physi-
cal properties and capable of chemical reactions. The term 
‘simple body’ corresponds to the idea of ‘molecule’ ... The 
name ‘element’ should be reserved for the particles which 
form the simple and compound bodies, and which deter-
mine how they behave from the point of physical and 
chemical view.73 

Fritz Paneth (1887-1958), one of the few chemists 
to philosophise, rationalised these concepts along with 
ontological and epistemological considerations. The 
word ‘element’ refers to the idea of   ‘atom’. The element, 
the Grundstoff, belongs to the transcendental world and 
is not observable. The simple substance, einfacher Stoff, 
is observable because it belongs to the world of ‘primi-
tive’ or ‘naive’ realism. The Grundstoffe are, therefore, 
the entities that fill the ‘squares’ of the periodic table. 
Still on this subject, American chemist Benjamin Har-
row (1888-1970) offered much earlier (1930) a very sim-
ple, perhaps too simple, anthropomorphic explanation:



41The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

This periodic Law is really more complicated than our 
exposition would lead the reader to believe; but for our 
purpose [diffusion of scientific knowledge] all complications 
can here be discarded. For us the important lesson that 
the periodic law teaches is that since there are family rela-
tionships among, since there are brothers and sisters, there 
must be fathers and mothers, from which we conclude that 
there must be a ‘something’ in the universe simpler and still 
more fundamental than the elements – a ‘something’ out of 
which the elements themselves are built. 

This ‘something’, recent studies have shown, is the 
proton and the electron, the positive and the negative 
particles of electricity. All atoms are made up of protons 
and electrons. The atoms of any element, such as gold, 
are practically alike, but an atom of gold is different 
from an atom of chlorine. On the other hand, the pro-
tons and electrons, so far as we can tell, are the same, 
whether they are found in an atom of gold, in an atom 
of chlorine, or in any atom of the 92 elements.74 

Harrow certainly knew Moseley’s law: there is 
no direct evidence of this, but reference to anthropo-
morphic “ brothers” and “mothers” must have been 
inspired by the radioactive decay series. Mendeleev him-
self explained Harrow’s ‘something’ in 1869 when he 
referred to carbon, diamond and coal. In the following 
quote, we can identify Paneth’s classification of Grundst-
off and einfacher Stoff: 

It does not matter how the properties may change, some-
thing remains unchanged, and when these elements form 
compounds, this something acquires a material value and 
establishes the properties of the element containing com-
pounds. With respect to this, we know only one property 
characteristic of each element, the atomic weight. The mag-
nitude of the atomic weight, according to the very essence 
of matter, is a number unrelated to the degree of division 
of simple bodies but related to the material part common 
to the simple body and its compounds. The atomic weight 
does not refer to coal or diamond, but to carbon.75 

Finally, it may prove useful to verify if the concept 
of the element has remained unchanged over the years, 
or whether it has undergone some sort of ‘reconceptual-
ization’. Going to back to Lavoisier, we can see that the 
French chemist introduced a pragmatic concept of ele-
ment: a substance which cannot be further subdivided 
by any chemical means. This pragmatic, empirical and 
operational approach to the definition of ‘element’ can be 
traced back to Condillac and even to Locke, and it can 
be singled out as one of the probable causes of Lavoisier’s 
inability in elaborating a philosophy of chemistry. 

The alternative to the pragmatic approach can be 
found in classic metaphysics: the element is a ‘substance’ 

(from the Greek ousia = being). Substantia (Latin) is that 
which ‘grounds’ things like attributes or properties. Sub-
stances, in generic philosophical terms, can therefore, be 
said to be the fundamental entities of reality. Accord-
ing to this definition, if atoms are the basic things from 
which all else is constructed, then atoms are (or are like) 
substances. There is an obvious realist interpretation of 
reality here, substances – the basic building blocks of 
reality – are real, and so are all instantiated properties.76 

Philosophical schools such as logical positivism or 
pragmatism (i.e. those which consider metaphysics a 
simple matter of convention) would deny the reality of 
substances. For the antirealist there can be no fact of the 
matter about the foundation of reality, so substances, 
atoms, elements, or any candidate to what can be onto-
logically basic, lose their objective status. It must also 
be said that one can coherently think of a substance in 
different terms. It can be said to be a kind of entity, like 
an object. And an object can perhaps be thought of as a 
bundle of properties, in which case ‘object’ is not basic, 
or simple. The same reasoning could be applied to an 
atom or even element.

Mendeleev’s views, according to Martin Labarca and 
Alfio Zamboni, seem to somehow combine pragmatism 
with a metaphysical approach to substance, what they 
call a dual sense.77 Elements are foundational, abstract 
and real, but deprived of properties. ‘Operational’ ele-
ments are ‘simple’ substances (like atoms) which possess 
properties. One could think of such a hybrid approach 
used by Mendeleev – in contrast to other classifications 
– as vulnerable to challenges originating from Soddy’s 
definition of isotope. But Paneth, in the 1930s, sus-
tained that isotopy does not modify chemical proper-
ties (hydrogen being the exception), so no revision of the 
chemical periodic table would be necessary. Each new 
isotope would be a new ‘simple substance’, and not a 
new abstract element. Paneth’s arguments convinced the 
IUPAC to substitute the atomic mass as characteristic of 
each element by the atomic number (1923), a property of 
the abstract (real) element. 

But with the discovery of the neutron (Chadwick, 
1932) some adaptations were indeed necessary: for each 
element, there is an upper and lower limit of the num-
ber of neutrons, and of atomic mass, to ensure the 
atom’s stability. An up-to-date representation of periodi-
city would be based not just on the atomic number, but 
also on the number of neutrons. Labarca and Zamboni 
propose to reconceptualise the element as: “a certain 
class of entity constituted by a ‘fundamental substance’ 
[metaphysical concept] which exhibits two representa-
tive properties, the atomic number and the limits for 
the atomic mass, with contingent proprieties varying 



42 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

case-by-case.”78 The primary criterion for the classifica-
tion of the elements, they propose, would be the num-
ber of neutrons, whereas the second criterion would be 
the electronic distribution – and not the atomic number. 
Nevertheless, even under such a reconceptualisation, the 
periodic system maintains most of Mendeleev’s concep-
tion.

THE PERIODIC TABLE AND AESTHETICS 

Georges Urbain (1872–1938), a chemist interested 
in so many arts and involved in filling the “blanks” or 
“voids” left by Mendeleev in his table, said in one of his 
non-chemical works: “from an intellectual point of view, 
the sage and the creative artist are twin brothers.”79 

It is also often the case that scientists regard the 
products of their work (theories, models, proofs) as hold-
ing aesthetic value. But the precise nature of the rela-
tionship between science and aesthetics is difficult to 
grasp, and often involves confusion of categories. As an 
example, one could refer to a rather cryptic quote from 
the engineer who turned physicist and philosopher, 
Abraham Moles (1920-1992):

In the act of creation, the scientist does not differ from the 
artist: in principle, there is no difference between artistic 
creation and scientific creation, they work with different 
materials of the Universe [ … ] creation is an act of spir-
ituality, which, using all ‘ dimensions’ of spirituality, all its 
planes of freedom and phenomenological apprehension, 
cannot be limited to a logical Universe, to a ludic Universe 
of gratuity, but must include all aspects of spiritual free-
dom, [ … ] there is only one unique intellectual creation.80 

It is one thing to say there can be beauty in the 
products of scientific investigation, or in the tools used 
to represent scientific knowledge (such as the periodic 
table), quite another to say there is beauty in the ‘act’ of 
creation. Intermingling aesthetics with spirituality does 
not do Moles any favours either. Furthermore, in sci-
ence, there is often talk of discovery, instead of creation, 
so where and when scientific creation occurs must be 
specified. 

Several aspects of science may hold aesthetic value. 
It is possible that aesthetic considerations play a role in 
theory choice – for example, in a situation of empirical 
underdetermination of theories: when having to choose 
between empirically equivalent rivals, one could appeal 
to aesthetic properties of one theory to favour it over 
the other. Or, it could be said that valuing simplicity as 
a heuristic guide is yet another instance of science inter-
mingling with aesthetics. 

More importantly, as singled out by Ivanova, “beau-
ty is also often taken to stand in a special epistemic link 
to truth. Many scientists argue that a beautiful theory 
is more likely to be true.”81 To assign an epistemic role 
to aesthetics is difficult. Can we ever justify confidence 
in the truth of a theory as arising from its beauty? Any 
aesthetic judgement is secondary to empirical adequa-
cy, which remains to this day the main criterion theory 
acceptance. 

Furthermore, it seems unlikely that beauty can ever 
be a predictor of scientific success. One could easily 
challenge the association between aesthetics and scien-
tific progress (or truth, or empirical adequacy) and claim 
it to be arbitrary and misleading. One could do so by 
pointing out cases of ‘beautiful’ theories that turned out 
to be false (such as Newtonian mechanics), while high-
lighting the success of theories which lack any aesthetic 
appeal. As Ulianov Montano points out, aesthetic values 
such as simplicity and unity are not [usually] instanti-
ated by highly successful theories.82 

However, if one considers not truth but understand-
ing to be the aim of science, then it may be easier to 
assign an epistemic role to aesthetics. For Henri Poin-
caré (1854-1912) aesthetic values, Ivanova reminds us, 
reduced in the case of science to simplicity and unity, 
work as “regulative ideals to be followed because they 
are linked to the ultimate aim of science, namely, gain-
ing an understanding of the relations that hold among 
the phenomena.” Therefore, aesthetic value gains an 
epistemic role because it shows how, given a certain 
theory, “apparently disconnected phenomena are unified 
under a simple framework.”83

We may now return to the case of the periodic table. 
While its acceptance is clearly owed to its success in pre-
dicting the discovery of a few elements, our appreciation 
of it as an object possessing important aesthetic value 
can be said to be the result of its excellent capacity to 
unify phenomena under a simple framework, therefore 
facilitating our understanding of, among other things, 
periodicity. 

It falls outside the scope of this essay to address 
the question of whether aesthetic judgements in chem-
istry or science in general, may have objective validity. 
We wish to highlight, however, that there is consensus 
among the scientific community that the periodic table 
exhibits aesthetic properties that are widely regarded 
as desirable, such as unity and simplicity. This helps 
explain why different representations of the table exist 
outside chemistry or academia.

So, let us now focus on less abstract digressions, 
and briefly survey the periodic table’s existence outside 
chemistry books. It can be found in works of art around 



43The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

the world, ranging from gigantic murals or monuments 
to postal stamps. 

In fact, the first homage of the Periodic Table on 
a postal stamp was issued by the Spanish mail in 2007 
(centenary of Mendeleev’s death). Created by inorganic 
chemist, Javier Garcia-Martinez (Alicante University), it 
was designed to transmit a “modern and positive image 
of chemistry” and “to catch the attention of stamp users 
and collectors alike with a colourful and highly geo-
metric design.” Garcia-Martínez was inspired by Dutch 
painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), whose abstract 
expressionism, geometric expression, and judicious use 
of colours help detail the ‘voids’ in the table.84 On the 
verse of the stamp, there are mural tables and printed 
tables in laboratories and classrooms. 

Over the years, some representations of the periodic 
table acquired notoriety or made the news – like the one 
recently discovered at St. Andrews University, printed 
in Vienna (1885) and brought to Scotland by Thomas 
Purdie (1843-1916). The oldest preserved printed table 
(1876) can be found in the Museum of the University of 
St. Petersburg. The historically most interesting case of 
mural tables is the large mural (2,2 x 2,7m) existing in 
an auditorium in the old building of the University of 
Barcelona (Taula de García-Banús), painted in 1934 by 
commission of professor Antonio Garcia-Banús (1888-
1955). Historians later discovered that it was a repro-
duction of the table conceived in 1926 by Bonn pro-
fessor Andreas von Antropoff (1878-1956), a popular 
table at the time,85 but abandoned in 1945 because of 
Antropoff ’s ideological positions. Some historians refer 
to Bauhaus and de Stijl influences in Antropoff ’s table. 
Recently rediscovered by Philip Stewart (b. 1939), the 
table was carefully restored in 2008 by professor Claudi 
Mans i Teixidó.86 Mans would say this is a unique case 
in the history of chemistry: a republican and socialist 
professor adopted a table created by a national-socialist 
professor, which was restored during a fully democratic 
government, after surviving Franco’s dictatorship. J. 
Marshall suggests Antropoff ’s table was situated halfway 
between Mendeleev’s classic short table and Alfred Wer-
ner’s (1866-1919) “long” table from 1905, and that the 
resulting practicality was responsible for the popularity 
of Antropoff ’s table, even in the United States.87

It would probably be best if ideologies never inter-
vened in the progress of science. But ideologies often 
accompanied Mendeleev’s career: his prestige in tsa-
rist Russia was enormous, malgré lui a national hero 
of the Soviet Union, although he did not see himself as 
socialist and despite his criticism of popular demonstra-
tions after failure of the 1905 Revolution. Mendeleev, in 
Brooks’ opinion, was always loyal to the tsarist regime, 

although there were frequent disagreements between the 
scientist and lower-ranked bureaucrats.88 

Another classic table, very popular in the 1920s and 
30s, was the one designed by American chemist Henry 
David Hubbard (1870-1943), from 1901 to 1938 secre-
tary of the United States National Bureau of Standards. 
Hubbard modified Mendeleev’s table (1924), giving it a 
more compact form, suitable for use in class. It has been 
updated several times, 12 editions until 1936, 18 until 
1963, sponsored by Sargent & Welch, Buffalo, manu-
facturers of teaching material. Hubbard’s was the most 
widely used periodic wall table in American schools. It 
was also well received in Brazil during the 1930s, the 
so-called “Hubbard’s Brazilian Table” from the former 
Escola Nacional de Engenharia (now the Polytechnic 
School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), a 
table ‘rediscovered’ by Sir Martyn Poliakoff, of Notting-
ham University. Hubbard’s Brazilian Table includes dat-
ed symbols, like Cb (columbium 41, instead of niobium), 
Ma (masurium 43), Il (illinium 61), Ab (alabamine 85),  
and Vi (virginium 87), among other curiosities, none of 
which were recognized discoveries.89 In an era of ata-
vistic nationalism, Hubbard’s table clearly illustrates the 
reluctance to abandon elements ‘discovered’ in the Unit-
ed States, even though these were not recognised by the 
international chemical community and would later have 
to be removed from the table.

In past centuries chemists had different, often sub-
jective, views on the structure of matter, which reflected 
on their teaching of chemistry. The same can be said of 
chemistry teachers and their subjective views on how 
best to present the periodic table. In some cases this per-
sonal exploration of the table by teachers was incredibly 
creative, and quoting Bertomeu-Sanchez (et al):

The most creative books were not necessarily the great trea-
tises written by creative academic chemists. Obscure chem-
istry teachers, who were not necessarily active in scientific 
research, attempted innovative and ambitious systems of 
elements in order to satisfy both didactic and scientific con-
straints. Textbook writing remained a creative activity. By 
creative, we do not necessarily imply innovation or great 
discovery. They were creative in a more modest way as they 
expressed original and ambitious interpretations of the 
foundations of chemistry.90

This idea is exemplified by one of the few Brazilian 
contributors to represent the periodic system, Alcindo 
Flores Cabral (1907-1982), professor at the School of Agri-
culture Eliseu Maciel (nowadays part of the Federal Uni-
versity of Pelotas), in 1946. Examining a mysterious mural 
at the entrance of the chemistry building in Pelotas, pro-
fessor Eder Lenardão rediscovered his table (2001).91 



44 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

In the case of a few talented chemists the necessity 
to write more engagingly and creatively – often inspired 
by episodes from their personal and professional lives – 
was responsible for the production not just of textbooks, 
but high-quality, transcendent or poetic literary pieces. 
Two examples deserve special attention: “Il Sistema Peri-
odico” by Primo Levi (1919-1987), published in 1975, 
and the biographical “Uncle Tungsten – Memories of a 
Chemical Boyhood” (2001) by neurologist Oliver Sacks 
(1933-2015). For Sacks: 

The Periodic Table is incredibly beautiful, the most beauti-
ful thing I had ever seen. I could never adequately analyze 
what I meant here by beautiful – simplicity? Coherence? 
Rhythm? Inevitability? Or perhaps it was its symmetry, 
the comprehensiveness of every element firmly locked into 
its place, with no gaps, no exceptions, everything implying 
everything else.92 

The elements in Primo Levi’s “Il Sistema Periodico” 
become symbols and metaphors for the various phas-
es of the author’s life, so that a summation of elements 
becomes his life story or a memoir. On such metaphori-
cal usage Luigi Dei (b. 1956) concluded that “we can say 
that the properties of the elements often reflect the prop-
erties of life itself: volatile, inert, lustrous, precious, poi-
sonous, brittle, explosive...”93 

In the chapter dedicated to iron, Levi thus refers to 
the Periodic Table: 

That the nobility of Man, acquired in a hundred centuries of 
trial and errors, lay in making himself the conqueror of mat-
ter, and that I had enrolled in chemistry because I wanted 
to remain faithful to this nobility. That conquering matter 
is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary 
to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that there-
fore Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which just during those last 
weeks we were laboriously learning to unravel, was poetry, 
loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swal-
lowed down in liceo, and come to think of it, it even rhymed! 
That if one looked for the bridge, the missing link…94 

Most of such literary pieces portray the periodic sys-
tem in a positive light. This need not always be so. In the 
poem “The Periodic Table of Elements”, Australian poet 
Bruce Greenhalgh shows his disenchantment with the 
table: 

…that it listed more/and less/than earth, wind, fire and 
water, [but 118 elements are] arranged by atomic number/
in an obscure scheme/of electrons and abbreviations, [with-
out any] reflect/on sodium/or potassium/or Byzantium [in 
reference to Yeats’s poem], no flair, no mystery, no poetry, 
nothing for me”, [poet and periodic table] have gone our 
separate ways.95 

Chilean poet Nicanor Parra (1914-2018), professor 
of theoretical physics in Santiago, has a similar, if more 
ironic, take on the table. In his long poem “Los Profe-
sores” (“The Teachers”), he speaks of “teachers turning 
us mad/with questions which do not matter” – including 
the periodic table. 

One may be tempted to explain why, given the suc-
cess of the table in systematizing existing knowledge and 
predicting new elements, a chemist would react nega-
tively to it. One could speculate that the table, for some 
people, may fall victim to its own success. It would be 
very difficult for a chemist to attempt any different form 
of systematisation today, which some would see as a lim-
itation to creativity. The table also indicates what pos-
sible new chemical discoveries may be like, which may 
lessen our sense of amazement when progress is indeed 
achieved. 

Finally, some chemical elements, isolated or classi-
fied by the table, inspired musical compositions as well. 
Edgar Varèse (1883-1965) honoured platinum with a 
piece for flute solo (1936), “Density 21.5” (the density of 
the metal), and the composer and theorist Andrew Still-
er (b. 1946) composed in 1988 “A Periodic Table of the 
Elements” for 14 wind and percussion instruments.96 

This brief survey of the table’s presence in non-
chemical or academic contexts goes to show that some 
scientific achievements, when consolidated through a 
universally accepted form of representation, have the 
tendency, or at least the potential, to become iconic – in 
the sense defined at the beginning of this essay. More on 
this in the next section.

THE PERIODIC TABLE AND POP CULTURE

The periodic table is the object of this essay, so let 
us define less rigorously what after all is ‘popular cul-
ture’. Also, the definition of “science fiction” differs from 
author to author; let us adopt here the definition given 
by Darko Suvin (b. 1930): “... a literary genre or verbal 
construct whose necessary and sufficient conditions are 
presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, 
and whose main device is an imaginative framework 
alternative to the author’s empirical environment.”97 

Science Fiction does not necessarily deal with the 
actual Periodic Table, but often invents (sometimes even 
foresees) fantastic and fanciful imaginary elements in an 
environment artificially constructed, but still plausible 
and credible. Hans Dominik (1872-1945), engineer, in 
his time famous as author of many science fiction stories 
and novels conceived in Atomgewicht 500, published in 
1934, artificial elements with very high atomic weights. 



45The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay

At the time he wrote it uranium had the highest atom-
ic weight, 238. Dominik’s scientific views are no longer 
valid, but the author’s utopian vision with respect to the 
future of nuclear chemistry is worthy of note. Some lines 
from the book: “The most important! You know what 
I mean. Atomic weight? Two hundred and forty-two! 
Four unities more than the atomic weight of uranium. 
Congratulations, Slawter! You were the first to obtain a 
substance non-existent on Earth and in terrestrial con-
ditions”98. Transuranic and transfermic elements exceed 
this weight; the heaviest known element to date is 
oganesson (Og, atomic number 118 - first synthesised in 
2002 at the  Joint Institute for Nuclear Research  in  Dub-
na, Russia, by Russian and American scientists), with an 
atomic weight of 294. 

With the probable completion of the ninth series 
of the table, we will surpass the value 300 ... will these 
imaginar y elements one day become reality? Suze 
Kundu wrote in Nature: “scientists and non-scien-
tists alike have long been dreaming of elements with 
mighty properties. Perhaps the fictional materials they 
have conjured up are not as far from reality as it may 
at first seem.”99 In face of “Atomic Number 500” and 
the ongoing study (a reality) of the Periodic Table, may 
we expect an upper limit for this “expanded” Periodic 
Table? Or a lower limit? What will this limit be? Sima 
Lozanic speculated about a limit already in 1906. Niels 
Bohr (1885-1962) in 1922 expanded electronic configu-
ration to element 118, but in 1924 he concluded theo-
retically that it would be difficult to surpass atomic 
number 137.100 Beyond the “island of stability” around 
atomic masses 290 – 300, perhaps atomic number 128 
will be the limit, or, for Albert Khazan (b. 1934), this 
figure would be 155.101 Pekka Pyykkö (b. 1941) and Bur-
khard Fricke, on the basis of mathematical calculations, 
suggest a limit of Z = 172 (suggesting a noble gas)102, 
and for Walter Greiner (1935-2016) there is no limit for 
the Periodic Table.

On the chemical properties of aluminium (an ele-
ment already known but still unused at the time), 
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote in 1856: 

Within the course of the last two years [...] a treasure has 
been divined, unearthed and brought to light [...] what 
do you think of a metal as white as silver, as unalterable 
as gold, as tough as iron, which is malleable, ductile, and 
with the singular quality of being lighter than glass? Such a 
metal does exist and that in considerable quantities on the 
surface of the globe.103

Dickens’ ‘treasure’ element did become reality. 
Another contemporary of Dickens, English chemist and 
industrialist John Carrington Sellars (1840-1916), in an 

attempt to popularise chemistry and find connections 
with Christianity, published in 1873 a curious and rath-
er long poem titled Chemistianity, “an oratorical verse, 
in poetic measure, on each known chemical element [ 
... ] in the universe.”104 Each of the 63 then-known ele-
ments received symbolic names. Dickens’s wonder metal 
aluminium, for instance, was called ‘Ktyon’, and about 
it Sellars says: “Aluminium, the Bright Star of Metals,/
The principal metal in common clay/In extremely light, 
bright, and silver-like/It does not oxidise in exposure 
to Air...”105 Sellars described in ‘oratorical verse’ the 
properties of the element. According to van der Krogt, 
Sellar’s book (today very rare and collectable) was well-
received at the time of publication.106

On the other hand, there is a perceptible trend in 
more recent fictional writing in which plausibly imag-
ined chemical knowledge gives way to fantastic, far-
fetched chemical worlds – as can be seen in superhero 
comics (Captain America, Wolverine), or in Tolkien’s 
fantasy books, and even in Janet Kuypers’ poetry: “I 
wracked my brain, ‘wait a minute,/I know osmium, it’s 
the densest metal/in the Periodic Table. But Diburni-
um?”107

J. Ober and T. Krebs include amongst their favour-
ite fictional elements the mithril of the Hobbit, by J. R. 
Tolkien (1892-1973), the dilithium from the universe 
of Star Trek, and the vibranium of Captain America’s 
shield.108 Mithril, made by dwarves, resembles silver, but 
it is lighter and stronger than steel. Dilithium, a miner-
al found on different planets of the Star Trek universe, 
regulates the reaction between matter and antimatter. 
Vibranium, originating from Wakanda (Africa) exhib-
its a powerful capacity to absorb, store, and release vast 
amounts of kinetic energy. One cannot help but won-
der whether reality will meet fiction at some point, and 
whether we will be able to say of a new element some-
thing similar to what Dickens said of aluminium. 

Still, in the genre of popular culture, the musician, 
comedian and Harvard professor of mathematics Tom 
Lehrer (b. 1928) authored a song containing all the ele-
ments of the periodic table. The song was based on com-
ic opera “The Pirates of Penzance” (aka “The Slave of 
Duty”), by Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900).

In the case of cinema, probably one of the most effi-
cient vehicles of mass communication, there has been 
little interest in the periodic table and its creator, Men-
deleev. He has not been the subject of any movies, fig-
uring only in documentaries such as “The Mystery of 
Matter” (2014). This is in sharp contrast to the cinema’s 
interest in the lives and works of many notable scien-
tists, such as Pasteur, Marie Curie, Ehrlich, Paracelsus, 
Copernicus, and even Julius Robert Mayer. 



46 Juergen Heinrich Maar, Alexander Maar

FINAL REMARKS

On November 2nd, 2017, the 39th General Conference 
of UNESCO in Paris proclaimed 2019 the International 
Year of the Periodic Table. This is, of course, a result of 
the table’s iconicity and universal appeal. Such recog-
nition does not mean that the table itself, or even the 
discovery of periodicity, are the most important inno-
vations in the history of chemistry. One could think of 
Dalton’s quantitative atomic theory, or Lavoisier’s oxygen 
theory, as better candidates for most important break-
through moments. Yet, most are quick to recognise the 
table as chemistry’s most important icon. 

Michael Mingos (b. 1946), from Oxford University, 
resumes the real possibilities of the Periodic Table: 

The Periodic Table is neither a biblical tablet of rules nor 
a monolithic Rosetta Stone, which provides accurate trans-
lations of chemical trends and properties. It does, however, 
offer a flexible two-dimensional mnemonic for recalling the 
important characteristics of the 118 known elements and 
the structure of their constituent atoms. […] It thereby pro-
vides a way of thinking for chemists which also reflects the 
individual’s unique history and personality.109

The table has undoubtedly been the most successful 
tool for the popularisation of chemistry and, by exten-
sion, scientific knowledge and practice. This cannot be 
explained just as a response to the discovery of periodic-
ity. But perhaps it can be explained by the table’s suc-
cess in both, accommodating and systematizing existing 
knowledge (theories and data) and predicting new discov-
eries. As is always the case in science, empirical adequacy 
was the primary reason for the table’s worldwide adoption 
as the best representation of what is known about the ele-
ments, atoms and their structure. But there were also oth-
er reasons for its positive reception in different countries. 

Finally, we hope to have shown that it is the dual 
nature of the table – its capacity to enclose the totality 
of chemical and physical knowledge about the elements, 
and its usefulness as a research and teaching tool – that 
give it iconicity. And such iconicity is revealed by the 
table’s appeal in domains outside of chemistry, such as 
the arts. By quickly surveying such domains, it shall 
be clear that the table’s role as a main vehicle of scien-
tific communication to the broad general public remains 
unchanged. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to express their gratitude to René 
and Peter van der Krogt, Delft; Eduardo Kremer, Monte-

video; Santiago Alvarez, Barcelona; and the anonymous 
reviewers, for their valuable suggestions .

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	Substantia
	An International Journal of the History of Chemistry
	Vol. 3, n. 2 Suppl. 5 - 2019
	Firenze University Press
	Setting the Table: A Retrospective and Prospective of the Periodic Table of the Elements.
	Mary Virginia Orna1, Marco Fontani2
	The Development of the Periodic Table and its Consequences
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	The Periodic Table and its Iconicity: an Essay
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	Discovering Elements in a Scandinavian Context: Berzelius’s Lärbok i Kemien and the Order of the Chemical Substances
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	Mendeleev’s “Family:” The Actinides
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	Controversial Elements:
Priority Disputes and the Discovery of Chemical Elements
	Helge Kragh
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	Gerd Löffler
	A Book Collector’s View of the Periodic Table: Key Documents before Mendeleev’s Contributions of 1869
	Gregory S. Girolami
	A Brief History of Early Silica Glass: Impact on Science and Society
	Seth C. Rasmussen
	Mendeleev at Home1
	Mary Virginia Orna