Meyer’s atomic volume curve

Figure 2.1 shows a modem version of Lothar Meyer s atomic volume curve the alkali metals... 

Meyer s atomic volume curve German chemist Julius... 

In the same paper he published the first version of his Periodic Table. One year later, Lothar Meyer supported Mendeleev s conclusions in a paper which had an essentially identical table. Meyer s paper contains the famous atomic volume curve showing maxima and minima as the atomic weight increased. 

It is thus significant that on November 30,1882, Britain s premier scientific society, the Royal Society, awarded the Davy Medal jointly to Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer, not wishing to indicate sole primacy of discovery of the periodic law. The president (mathematician William Spottiswoode) spoke of how the labors of Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer had extended our knowledge of the relations between the atomic weights of the elements and their respective chemical and physical properties, and atomic volume curves (Fig. 4.3). ... 

Mendeleev s reluctance toward reduction was not widely shared. One of the codiscoverers of the periodic system, the German Lothar Meyer, accepted the possibility of primary matter and supported Prouf s hypothesis. He was also happy to draw curves through numerical data, including his famous plot of atomic volumes that showed such remarkable periodicity that it helped in the acceptance of the periodic system. Nonetheless, prior to Thomson s discovery of the electron, no accepted model of atomic substructure existed to explain the periodic system, and the matter was still very much in dispute. 

Figure 2. Dimitri Mendeleev s discovery of the periodic system in 1869 was quickly followed by controversy over how it should be used, Mendeleev resisted reduction or explanation of the system in terms of atomic structure, and was specifically opposed to attempts to draw curves through points representing numerical data Lothar Meyer, who contributed to the discovery of the periodic system, was not so averse to reduction, however. One of his graphs, shown here in an 1870 publication, plotted atomic volume and was instrumental in the acceptance of the periodic system.

Lothar Meyer s Periodic Curve of Atomic Volumes,... 

The atomic volumes ol the four elements lie on an ascending branch of Lothar Meyer s periodic curve,1 the positions being in accordance with the non-mctallic nature, low fusibility and ready volatility of the elements. The gradation in physical properties is indicated in i he following table ... 

The atomic parachors are an approximation to the volumes of the atoms in coordinate or covalent combination it will be seen that there is a rough correspondence between the atomic parachors and the atomic volumes in Lothar Meyer s curve. 

From the dependence of atomic polarizability by the cubic atomic radii rises immediately the correspondence with the atomic volume also. Therefore, atomic polarizability states as a fully atomic related property and have to closely follow the periodicity of atomic volumes, the Lothar Meyer s periodic curve. 

Figure 9.7 Atomic volume plotted against atomic weight (from a publication of 1882 based on Lothar Meyer s curve of 1870)...

---