John Newlands
(26 November 1837 – 29 July 1898)
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John Alexander Reina Newlands
John Alexander Reina Newlands
Introduction:
Introduction:
Newlands was one of the precursors of Mendeleev in the formulation of the concept of periodicity in the properties of the chemical elements. He noticed a pattern with every eighth element and proposed the Law of Octaves where he arranged Periodic Table elements according to their relative atomic weights.
Background:
Background:
Family -
In 1873, Newland was born in London, England. He is the second son of the Revd William Newlands, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife, Mary Sarah Reina.
In 1860, Newlands who was a passionate supporter of various Victorian social reforms, put his chemistry career on hold and turned his attention to Italy as his mother was of Italian descent.
Education:
During early times, John Newlands was home-schooled by his father.
At the age of 19, he studied at the Royal College of Chemistry for a year under A. W. Hofmann.
He later became the assistant of J. T. Way, a chemist at the Royal Agricultural Society. Meanwhile, he tried to find patterns of behavior in organic chemistry.
In 1864, Newlands prepared to become an analytical chemist and supplemented his income by teaching chemistry.
In 1868, he became chief chemist of James Duncan's London sugar refinery.
The business declined as a result of foreign competition, he later quit the refinery.
Newlands became an analyst again with his younger brother, Benjamin Newlands and was active in teaching as well as research.
Royal College of Chemistry, London
August Wilhelm von Hofmann, A German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry
Jean-Baptiste Dumas
Personal relationship:
In 1862, John Newlands married Jane Richings and had a son and a daughter.
In 1865, he published 'Law of Octaves' by continuing Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner's work with triads and Jean-Baptiste Dumas' families of similar elements.
Death -
John Newlands died of influenza in 1898 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
His business was continued by Benjamin Newlands.
Contributions to Chemistry:
Contributions to Chemistry:
Newland published papers on organic compounds during early times.
Drawings of tables to show the relationships between compounds. However, they are vitiated by the absence at that time of clear ideas regarding structure and valency.
John Newlands presented the numerical relationships existing between the atomic weights of similar elements.
He found that elements with similar properties occurred at regular intervals.
In 1868 he developed a new system of cleaning sugar and introduced a number of improvements in processing.
The Features of Periodic Table by John Newlands:
The Features of Periodic Table by John Newlands:
John Newlands knew that other researchers had grouped elements into ‘families’ and noticed that atomic weights (known as atomic masses nowadays) of members of families were often related.
From the year 1864 to 1865, he arranged all the known elements, seven groups of eight. He was the first person to arrange elements according to their increasing atomic weights.
He discovered that any given element will exhibit analogous behavior to the eighth element following it in the table.
He named it as the Law of Octaves because this pattern was similar to an octave of notes in music.
The elements were numbered in the order of their atomic weights
He put all sixty-two elements in this table
Findings -
The recurrence at every eighth element showed the presence of periodic patterns in the properties of elements.
The incompleteness of the table alluded to the possible existence of additional, undiscovered elements. For example, germanium which he himself had predicted.
Mistakes -
The Law of Octaves was obeyed by the first 17 elements only (from H to Ca).
By ordering strictly according to atomic mass, Newlands was forced to put some elements into groups which did not match their chemical properties. He put iron in the same group as oxygen and sulphur, which are two non-metals.
He did some arrangements to make the ‘octaves’ more obvious.
Problems faced -
The Law of Octaves is not accepted by the Society of Chemists.
Neither Chemical Society nor the Royal Society published his paper.
The Davy Medal
Awards and Honors:
Awards and Honors:
Davy Medal (1887)
The Davy Medal, named after Humphry Davy, is awarded by the "Royal Society of London" for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry.
In 1860, when the work of Dmitri Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer on arranging the element received the Davy Medal, Newlands fought for recognition of his earlier work.
He received this for his discovery of the periodic law of the chemical elements.
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