The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table

The youngest of 14 children, the Siberian Dmitri Mendeleev studied at St. Petersburg, Paris, and, under Bunsen, at Heidelberg. In 1869 he published the first workable periodic table of the elements. The table contained gaps for elements still to be discovered; Mendeleev became known for his ability to predict correctly the weight of missing elements. Element 101, mendelevium, is named after him. 

Polish by birth, Marie Sklodowska moved to France, where she married fellow scientist Pierre Curie. She and her husband performed critical research on the nature of radiation, winning the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1911 Marie won a second Nobel for the discovery of radium and polonium. Curie’s daughter, Irène, made further advances with polonium and won a Nobel in 1935. Both Marie and Irène died of cancers from radiation poisoning. Element 96, curium, is named for Marie Curie.

To improve the study of elements, Bunsen in the mid-1800s redesigned the laboratory burner, invented the spectroscope, and used them together to study the light emitted by heated atoms. This greatly sped up the discovery of new elements. Bunsen mentored Mendeleev, who developed the first periodic table.