The “Chemical Mechanics” of the Periodic Table (original) (raw)

In 1969, the centennial of Mendeleev’s discovery of the periodic table was commemorated by an international conference devoted to the periodicity and symmetry of the elementary structure of matter. The conference was held in the Vatican and brought together a selected audience of first-rate atomic and nuclear scientists. In 1971, the proceedings were published in a joint publication [1] of the Academy of Sciences of Torino and the National Academy in Rome. Among the many interesting contributions, the American cosmologist John Archibald Wheeler described a mind-boggling journey from “Mendeleev’s atom to the collapsing star.” According to Wheeler [2], Mendeleev was convinced that the atom is not “deathlike inactivity” but a dynamic reality and Mendeleev expressed his hope that the discovery of an orderly pattern would “hasten the advent of a true chemical mechanics.” This hope has certainly been met by Schrödinger’s wave mechanics, which provides an accurate tool to simulate the prop...