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Saturday, August 15, 2015

Mendeleev the Russian Christian and his discovery of nature's pattern

The table of elements was a Christian discovery.

by StFerdIII

 

The periodic table of elements, is an essential tool of science. Every student has suffered through memorizing vast parts of these building blocks of life. It is one of the great “patterns” in nature discovered by careful, painstaking work in chemistry by many scientists over many years.  The one who is most famous for putting the pieces together in a systematic way was of course the Russian Orthodox Christian Dmitri Mendeleev.

 

Dr. DeYoung, in 'Scientists who made a difference' p. 67 states:

 

One of 17 children, Mendeleev was told by his mother to “patiently search divine and scientific truth.”  He firmly believed in Scripture, especially Proverbs 25:2 which says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search out a matter.”  Mendeleev thus saw chemistry as a royal and godly pursuit.  He was led to seek out the underlying order to the atomic elements based on their weights and other properties.  In Mendeleev’s funeral procession in St. Petersburg, Russia, his appreciative students carried a large banner displaying the periodic table of the elements.

 

Coming from a Christian family, Mendeleev naturally viewed the world as an orderly system amenable to scientific investigation.  He claimed the inspiration for his work was prompted by a dream, and the next day began working out the pattern.  As he was building the table, his belief that the pattern he saw emerging would continue led him to take the intellectual leap of leaving spots blank in the table, in faith believing that elements would be discovered to fill the blank spots.  He predicted the existence of gallium, germanium and scandium, for instance, and even was able to predict some their properties by interpolating from other known elements in similar positions on the table.

 

The story of the discovery of the periodic table is told in detail in A Meaningful World by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt (IVP Academic, 2006).  They use it as one of many illustrations from history of how the arts and sciences reveal the underlying genius and meaning in nature.

 

After Dmitri’s death, element 101 was named Mendelevium in his honor.  A crater on the moon also bears his name.

 

 

But remember, according to Atheist theology, Christianity and science do not reconcile themselves, nor comport themselves to inquiry and revelation......so stateth the ignorant.