“Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) a Russian chemist who created the periodic table of elements. The table went on to have the same transformative effect on the world of science as the invention of electricity.
Popular myth also credits Mendeleev with the invention of vodka. It is believed that prior to Mendeleev alcohol content in vodka was largely random, whereas he was the first to calculate the optimum figure of 40 percent. The rest, as they say, is history.
Mendeleev himself did not consider himself to be a chemist. And rightly so. Back in those years the word “chemist” was synonymous to conman and the expression “to do chemistry” (khimichit in Russian) meant to dupe, to cheat.
Mendeleev had his fingers in many pies. He made leather trunks, he invented smokeless powder, he advised tsar’s ministers, he flew in a hot-air balloon, and he even taught famous poet Aleksandr Blok how to write poetry.
When Blok came to ask Mendeleev’s permission to marry his daughter Lyuba, Dmitri Ivanovich sat him down on a sofa and began reading Pyort Yershov’s “The Humpbacked Horse” to him, as if trying to impress Blok with the idea of what true poetry should be like.
The story with the hot-air balloon went as follows: Mendeleev decided to observe a solar eclipse from a hot-air balloon called Russky. He was supposed to be accompanied by a lieutenant Kovanko. It was an overcast day, with a miserable drizzle coming down from the sky.
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About 30 minutes before sunrise, looking west from First Hill to Downtown Seattle..
Satellite photo 7/31/2017 from a few days before the BC smoke obscured the area. That’s a phytoplankton bloom covering all of Hood Canal.
Sailing in the Smoke of Seattle’s Elliott Bay.