Jun 01, 2005
Solid state electronics, which has revolutionized modern life, arises from the unique properties of silicon and germanium in that their electrical properties change dramatically when in their crystal lattices substituted atoms are introduced. Another widely used solid state material is gallium which is used in light emitting diodes and other devices. It is an amusing sidelight of history of chemistry that the original names of gallium and germanium were eka-aluminum and eka-silicon, where the eka, Sanskrit for one, was used by Mendeleev, the formulator of the Periodic Table of elements, as representing beyond. The prediction for the existence of these elements was made by Mendeleev in a paper in 1869, and it was the identification of these elements in 1875 and 1886 that made him famous, and led to the general acceptance of the periodic table.
In all, Mendeleev gave Sanskrit names to eight elements in his periodic table. This note presents the connection between the Sanskrit tradition and the crucial insight that led him to his discovery.
Mendeleev’s periodic table of elements, formulated in 1869, is one of the major conceptual advances in the history of science. Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) arranged in the table the 63 known elements based on atomic weight, which he published in his article “On the Relationship of the Properties of the Elements to their Atomic Weights.” [1] He left space for new elements, and predicted three yet-to-be-discovered elements including eka-silicon and eka-boron. It is the Sanskrit “eka” of these names that is what we wish to investigate in this paper.
Mendeleev was born at Tobolsk, Siberia, and educated in St. Petersburg. He was appointed to a professorship in St. Petersburg 1863 and in 1866 he succeeded to the Chair of Chemistry in the University. He is best known for his work on the periodic table, which was soon recognized since he predicted the existence and properties of new elements and indicated that some accepted atomic weights of the then known elements were in error. His table was an improvement on the classification by Beguyer de Chancourtois and Newlands and was published a year before the work of Lothar Meyer.
The earlier attempts at classification had considered some two-dimensional schemes, but they remained arbitrary in their conception. Mendeleev’s main contribution was his insistence that the two-dimensional arrangement was comprehensive. In this he appears to have been inspired by the comprehensive two-dimensional arrangement of Sanskrit sounds, which he indirectly acknowledges in his naming scheme.
Mendeleev’s 1869 Paper and later Work
Here’s an English translation of his brief paper: “By ordering the elements according to increasing atomic weight in vertical rows so that the horizontal rows contain analogous elements, still ordered by increasing atomic weight, one obtains the following arrangement, from which a few general conclusions may be derived.
 1. The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit a periodicity of properties.
2. Chemically analogous elements have either similar atomic weights (Pt, Ir, Os), or weights which increase by equal increments (K, Rb, Cs).
3. The arrangement according to atomic weight corresponds to the valence of the element and to a certain extent the difference in chemical behavior, for example Li, Be, B, C, N, O, F.
4. The elements distributed most widely in nature have small atomic weights, and all such elements are marked by the distinctness of their behavior. They are, therefore, the representative elements; and so the lightest element H is rightly chosen as the most representative.
5. The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the properties of the element. Therefore, in the study of compounds, not only the quantities and properties of the elements and their reciprocal behavior is to be taken into consideration, but also the atomic weight of the elements. Thus the compounds of S and Tl [Te was intended], Cl and J, display not only many analogies, but also striking differences.
6. One can predict the discovery of many new elements, for example analogues of Si and Al with atomic weights of 65-75.
7. A few atomic weights will probably require correction; for example Te cannot have the atomic weight 128, but rather 123-126.
8. From the above table, some new analogies between elements are revealed. Thus Bo (?) [apparently Ur was intended] appears as an analogue of Bo and Al, as is well known to have been long established experimentally.”
The full list of his predicted elements together with the Sanskrit names he chose is given in the following table.
Julius Lothar Meyer (1830–1895) published his classic paper of 1870 [2] that also presented the periodicity of atomic volume plotted against atomic weight. Meyer and Mendeleev carried on a long drawn-out dispute over priority. But it was Mendeleev’s predictions of yet-unknown elements that secured his fame. The most famous of these predictions was for eka-silicon (germanium) for which not only did he postulate its existence, but also its properties in its chloride and oxide combinations.
The Sanskrit Tradition and Mendeleev’s Discovery
There are a couple of theories about why Mendeleev should have used a Sanskrit prefix. According to Professor Paul Kiparsky of Stanford University, Mendeleev was a friend and colleague of the Sanskritist Böhtlingk, who was preparing the second edition of his book on Panini [3], the author of a famed grammar of Sanskrit who lived in the fifth century BC, at about this time, and Mendeleev wished to honour Pânini with his nomenclature. Noting that there are striking similarities between the Periodic Table and the introductory Maheúvara or Úiva Sutras in Panini’s grammar, Kiparsky says: [4]
[T]he analogies between the two systems are striking. Just as Panini found that the phonological patterning of sounds in the language is a function of their articulatory properties, so Mendeleev found that the chemical properties of elements are a function of their atomic weights. Like Panini, Mendeleev arrived at his discovery through a search for the "grammar" of the elements (using what he called the principle of isomorphism, and looking for general formulas to generate the possible chemical compounds). Just as Panini arranged the sounds in order of increasing phonetic complexity (e.g. with the simple stops k,p... preceding the other stops, and representing all of them in expressions like kU, pU) so Mendeleev arranged the elements in order of increasing atomic weights, and called the first row (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon etc.) “typical (or representative) elements”. Just as Panini broke the phonetic parallelism of sounds when the simplicity of the system required it, e.g. putting the velar to the right of the labial in the nasal row, so Mendeleev gave priority to isomorphism over atomic weights when they conflicted, e.g. putting beryllium in the magnesium family because it patterns with it even though by atomic weight it seemed to belong with nitrogen and phosphorus. In both cases, the periodicities they discovered would later be explained by a theory of the internal structure of the elements.
Kiparsky has examined the question of the optimality of the Siva Sutras elsewhere. [5] He suggests that this optimality might have provided him with the confidence in a similarly optimal two-dimensional table of elements.
My own view is that it is unlikely that Panini's Úiva Sutras that influenced him, because there is no evidence that he knew Sanskrit well enough to appreciate the subtle points related to the organization of the Úiva Sutras. It is more plausible that he noted the comprehensiveness of the two-dimensional arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet (varnamâlâ) which is apparent to even the beginning student of the language. The tabular form of the Sanskrit letters is due to the two parameters (point of articulation and aspiration) at the basis of the sounds, and Mendeleev must have recognized that ratios/valency and atomic weight likewise defined a two-dimensional basis for the elements.
Convinced that the analogy was fundamental, Mendeleev theorized that the gaps that lay in his table must correspond to undiscovered elements. For his predicted eight elements, he used the prefixes of eka, dvi, and tri (Sanskrit one, two, three) in their naming.
It should be recognized that some of the most brilliant European minds studied Sanskrit in the nineteenth century, and philology and natural science papers were published in the same proceedings of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, as at other academies. The two-dimensional regular representation of Sanskrit sounds must have been well-known to Mendeleev. The paths of Böhtlingk and Mendeleev crossed in many ways: Mendeleev lectured at the Academy when he was awarded its Demidov prize for his book Organic Chemistry, which had appeared in 1861, when Böhtlingk was on the nomination committee for the prize.
Mendeleev, by using Sanskrit names, was tipping his hat to the Sanskrit grammarians of yore, who had created astonishingly sophisticated theories of language based on their discovery of the two-dimensional patterns in basic sounds.
The connections between computer science and Sanskrit grammatical conception have been investigated by several scholars. [6] But the connection between these grammatical ideas and modern theories of matter is a most fascinating chapter of history of science that has remained forgotten for over a hundred and thirty years.
References
[1] D. Mendelejeff, Zeitschrift für Chemie 12, 405-6 (1869). Reprinted in David M. Knight, ed., Classical Scientific Papers--Chemistry, Second Series, 1970; translation from German by Carmen Giunta.
[2] J.L. Mayer, “Die Natur der chemischen Elemente als Function ihrer Atomgewichte,” Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie, supp. 7 [1870]), 354–364.
[3] Otto Böhtlingk, Panini’s Grammatik: Herausgegeben, Ubersetzt, Erlautert und MIT Verschiedenen Indices Versehe. St. Petersburg, 1839-40.
[4] Paul Kiparsky, private communication.
[5] Paul Kiparsky, “Economy and the construction of the Sivasutras.” In M. M. Deshpande and S. Bhate (eds.), Paninian Studies. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1991.
[6] See, for example, Saroja Bhate and Subhash Kak, “Panini’s grammar and computer science.” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 72, 1993, pp79-94.
Dr. Subhash Kak is Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor in the Asian Studies and Cognitive Science Programs at Louisiana State University
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