Everyone is a genius … at times –

May 21, 2020 – The year was 1869. Scientist Dmitri Mendeleev was trying to find a meaningful way to organize chemical elements. He toiled for years and still hadn’t found a solution. It became an obsession.

Then one day he decided to write all of the elements on note cards. One element per card. He took another card and wrote the properties of each element on them.

He could tell by this activity that atomic weight was somehow important, but a clear, useful pattern for organizing the elements still eluded him. He moved the note cards around his desk for hours trying to find patterns until he fell asleep at his desk mentally exhausted.

When he woke up, he realized he knew the answer. His subconscious mind had organized the cards for him in the meaningful way he was seeking, while he was sleeping.

He said later “In a dream, I saw a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.”

And the Periodic Table of Elements we know today was born.

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