If you've ever had to memorize the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements, you may know the name Lothar Meyer.
Because it was Meyer, a German chemist, professor and author who, as one of two scientists, did pioneering work for the earliest periodic tables and discovered the periodic law of chemical elements. To celebrate his contribution to science, Google dedicated his Doodle to Meyer on Wednesday on his 190th birthday.
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Julius Lothar Meyer, born in Varel in 1830, initially followed in his father's footsteps and studied medicine. After a few years of study, he shifted his focus to chemistry and began teaching science.
In 1864, Meyer published The Modern Theories of Chemis, which included an early version of the periodic table that contained 28 elements that were first divided into six families based on their atomic weight.
At the same time that Meyer was working at his table, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev was formulating his own periodic table, which included an arrangement that he said came to him in a dream. Meyer's initial pattern arranged the elements in a horizontal form, but before he could publish a revision in a vertical form in 1870, Mendeleev published a periodic table in 1869 that included all the elements known at the time and corrected some atomic weights.
A few months later, Meyer published his revision, which included a line graph showing the relationship between atomic volume and atomic weight and the periodic relationship of the elements. Meyer's diagram is shown on the Wednesday Doodle board.
Although Meyer developed his revision independently, he recognized Mendeleev's priority.
In recognition of their work on periodic law, both Meyer and Mendeleev were awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society in 1882.
