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A critique of Weisberg’s view on the periodic table and some speculations on the nature of classifications

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Abstract

This article carefully analyzes a recent paper by Weisberg in which it is claimed that when Mendeleev discovered the periodic table he was not working as a modeler but instead as a theorist. I argue that Weisberg is mistaken in several respects and that the periodic table should be regarded as a classification, not as a theory. In the second part of the article an attempt is made to elevate the status of classifications by suggesting that they provide a form of ‘side-ways explanation’.

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Notes

  1. Similarly the large gap in atomic weights between calcium (40) and titanium (48) led Mendeleev quite naturally to postulate the existence of an intermediate element to which he attributed the atomic weight of 44 as also seem in Fig. 1.

  2. If the reader is wondering why authors before Mendeleev did not leave gaps and make predictions the answer is that several of them did do so contrary to the popular myth that only Mendeleev did (Scerri 2007). The fact remains however, that Mendeleev capitalized on gaps and predictions to a greater degree than the other discoverers of the periodic system.

  3. Mendeleev wrongly believed that it was something about the property of weight that explained the periodic table. Mendeleev’s periodic law was therefore not explanatory, even if modern accounts of the periodic law in terms of quantum physics do offer a causal explanation for the periodicity in elemental properties.

  4. Many other authors have proposed similar schemes in which causation is not necessarily directed either upwards or downwards. See for example the work of Denis Noble as summarized in his recent book, The Music of Life.

  5. Of course the constraints can be provided from the elements above and below in a group of the periodic table or even elements placed diagonally. This will still be regarded as sideways explanation although it may not be literally sideways on a two-dimensional periodic table.

  6. Recall that the periodic table which has been the subject of a good part of the recent prediction—accommodation debate is not a theory, at least for the vast majority of authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, U.C.L.A., 607 Charles Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Eric R. Scerri

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  1. Eric R. Scerri
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Correspondence to Eric R. Scerri.

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This article is being reprinted from a previously published version with a different title. It originally appeared as “Who is a Theorist?”, in the journal Eureka sobre Enseñanza y Divulgación de las Ciencias, 8(3), 231–239, 2011. I am grateful to the editor of the journal, José María Oliva Martinez, for granting me permission to reprint it here. The first oral version of the paper was given at the Oxford Conference which forms the basis of this special issue.

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Scerri, E.R. A critique of Weisberg’s view on the periodic table and some speculations on the nature of classifications. Found Chem 14, 275–284 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-012-9164-y

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