Tech History Made on February 7, 1863

On this day in 1863, John Newlands tried to organize the elements in a table. Newland, a British chemist, arranged them according to his "law of octaves". he had noticed that as he arranged the elements using Stanislao Cannizzaro's atomic -weight system that a pattern of eights appeared. Elements with similar properties appeared every eighth element, like the perfect eight or octave in music. Newland arranged them into a table and "made" some things work. This lead to a table that just didn't work, and was dismissed by the English Chemical Society. Of course we all know that in 1869 Mendeleev developed the periodic table. 18 years after Mendeleevs accomplishment the Royal Society recognized Newlands contribution to organizing the earths elements.