Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest For the Elements

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He later dreamt of a snake swallowing its tail, a vision that helped him determine the circular structure of the Benzene molecule. Strathern is an entertaining guide, too, capably marshaling a colorful cast of thinkers and experimentalists.

August Kekulé, the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure, dreamt of “atoms gambolling before my eyes! Of course, he had it coming to him because he was just a stupid, benighted alchemist, a charlatan and a fraud. From ancientphilosophy, through medieval alchemy to the splitting of the atom, this is the true story of the birth of chemistry and the role of one man's dream .

The author adds some nice touches like Goethe interest in the field and how at that time general culture was not dissociated from science (as it usually happens nowadays).

I've read critiques of this book complaining that it gives the false impression that science proceeds in a straight line by omitting a lot of context around the historic episodes he presents, but I didn't take it that way at all. In its pages there are more asides, anecdotes, ammunition for pub quizzes, personal information about alchemists, scientists, chemists, and charlatans, and touches of humor than the reader has a right to expect. earlier, the French positivist philosopher Auguste Comte had pronounced that certain kinds of knowledge would remain forever beyond the reach of science. Even though Strathern prose is pleasant and the content interesting, I prefer the former more direct approach. I'm a scientist and I value the scientific method but I'd argue that even today the method only gives us simplistic glimpses of the truth and I know better than to mock the people who came before me.

For example, Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table was so successful because it was predictive as well as descriptive. A few of the intervals began with a certain regularity, but then the pattern just seemed to peter out. It goes all the way back to the Ancient Greeks and how Aristotle proposed a theory in which matter was composed of four elements—fire, earth, wind, and water. But if you have to put in the modern judgement (which may possibly be a service to modern readers), do it ONCE and do it AT THE END.