On 23 July, a ceremonial opening of the panel “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” will be held within the programme of events dedicated to the 65th JINR. ! It is 284 square metres large making it the biggest in Europe.

The Table is placed on the wall of the Archimedes Swimming Pool on the Volga River embankment and is clearly visible to citizens and guests, as well as passengers of numerous cruise ships sailing along the river. The table reflects an outstanding contribution made by scientists from Dubna, Moscow region, to the discovery of new chemical elements and is intended to raise public interest in the achievements of modern science.

We talked to Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian, a specialist in experimental nuclear physics, RAS Academician and FLNR JINR Scientific Leader, about the idea for the panel. Under the guidance of Yuri Tsolakovich, all currently known superheavy elements from 113 to 118 were obtained in Dubna, the last of which was named after him – oganesson.

– Yuri Tsolakovich, a significant event will take place on the birthday of our science city, the opening of the world’s largest Mendeleev Table in Dubna on the facade of the Archimedes Swimming Pool.

– Yes, this panel will become a new landmark in our city. Dubna has a glorious history: when the canal was made, a monument to Lenin was built here by the great sculptor S.D. Merkurov, then the film “Volga-Volga” with Lyubov Orlova was made – part of the shooting was on the Moscow-Volga Canal and the Moscow Sea, and now the embankment will have such a significant object – the panel ” Mendeleev’s Periodic Table”.

– The panel is not just a decoration, it is primarily a popularisation of science, a kind of story about the achievements of JINR to Dubna residents and visitors of the city.

— “That’s right. Here in Dubna, Mendeleev’s great discovery was continued when JINR scientists synthesised new chemical elements. The Table, which passengers will see on all ships sailing down the Volga, reflects the outstanding contribution of our city’s researchers to science and will hopefully increase interest, particularly among young people, in new scientific achievements.

A tourist attraction has always many facets. The panel may be considered from an architectural, documentary, educational, and deeply scientific points of view. We will see how the Table will change, what elements will emerge, and so on.

– In your opinion, will there be a time when Mendeleev’s Periodic Table is full and closed?

– In fact, nuclear physics is a little over a hundred years old. Speaking of the elements, it should be recalled that when Mendeleev went to press in March 1869, it was believed that the elements, no matter how many there were, were the building blocks of the universe, and the world was built from these elements. And they, these blocks, are inseparable. They were called atoms by Democritus 400 years before Christ, which was a purely philosophical concept at that time.

And with the great scientist Dalton in 1808, when only 36 elements were known, the blocks merged into molecules, then into more complex forms – crystals. Only 36 elements in total, just like the letters of the alphabet. And you can describe anything with these letters.

But when Mendeleev started to investigate the properties of these elements, there were already 63 of them, he noticed that the properties of these elements were periodically repeated. However, this pattern was clearly inconsistent with the notion of ” the building blocks of the universe”. Alphabet letters must not resemble each other! And if they are similar, following some kind of pattern, it means that they have a complicated structure themselves, which actually gives this periodicity…

Mendeleev realised that the set of elements under consideration were not the building blocks of the universe. He began to seek for the essence which gave birth to the elements, and was completely absorbed by the search for these origins of the material world. But the table remained. And now, 150 years later, oddly enough, we have started to ask the same questions: what is the Table and how is periodicity interpreted, what will happen next, can some elements be heavier, can elements that are artificially created be considered genuine?

If we go further, the law itself will change because, according to the theory of relativity, if electrons move around the nucleus at a speed close to the speed of light, their mass will increase, and this must be taken into account. For this reason, the orbits will condense and then the very last orbit, where the exact electron responsible for the chemical properties rotates, will change its characteristics.

Through these discoveries, the entire scientific world was once again convinced that it was possible to do something that had previously seemed impossible. Big progress will happen when they start building quantum computers, that’s the machinery we’re talking about, but what it will look like… There are different scenarios, they depend on the specified interactions and the effects of the theory of relativity. This is what we will do, it’s a long way, now we have realised that the means we used to discover new elements are not good enough to go on. Things are developing very fast now: what is considered to be the cutting edge of science at the moment will be commonplace in 10 years’ time.

– So the process of finding new elements is endless…

— The Table is unlimited itself. It continues to exist in the scientific world, elements will be added, new forms of it will be discovered and new laboratories will be built to find the elements.

— Yuri Tsolakovich, I am curious to know under what circumstances the idea emerged? How was the choice of space for the panel made?

— There are tables of this kind around the world already, in Spain, for example, it covers 150 square metres. Ours will be bigger! I showed this table to Victor Anatolievich Matveev in 2017, then we discussed the possibility of it being placed on the back facade of the Cultural Centre Mir. Sometimes I stroll in this park and sit on a bench just opposite it. And one day Andrei Vladimirovich Tamonov came up to me and we discussed what could be done on this wall, something monumental. And I introduced him to my idea. And when I shared my thoughts with Grigory Vladimirovich Trubnikov, he already had it in his plans, only having the facade of the swimming pool in mind, so that it would be visible from the Volga.

— If we talk about the details of creating the panel – how was the design developed, why is it like this? Is the cognitive aspect above the rest and predominant in this project?

— If you search the Mendeleev’s Table on the internet, there is a huge number of them, I believe there are 1500 kinds. The table has various forms, and of all of them Sergey Nikolaevich Dmitriev and I chose the one with the scientific content. The panel “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” Is made not just decoratively, but also scientifically meaningful.

Our Table will look great at night with a illuminated. Moreover, there is a free field on the left of the Table where we can broadcast lectures, speak about the history of the elements’ discoveries, about their chemical properties. On the right side of the panel, we may demonstrate various elements of the Table.

— Yuri Tsolakovich, the range of your scientific interests is described in more than one article. And what helps you to distract yourself from your work process, from science. Maybe theatre, music?

— Everything you just said is all spiritual: both thinking and art are connected to a person’s spirituality. You know, I often get asked a question that is difficult to answer. I am asked about the benefits of discovering elements. It is an intangible understanding that cannot be bought or sold, it comes as a discovery, you suddenly see the world in a new way.

— How interconnected do you think science and culture are?

— One is very poor without the other, and they are certainly interconnected. That’s why I tell my students to put their books aside, forget about them for a while, go to the theatre, listen to music, see what’s going on around. This is so important, it broadens horizons.

— After encountering with art, do scientists go back to work as different people?

— Exactly: I tell them I can forgive everything, but I can’t forgive them if they don’t know anything but their field. Then they will also learn and discover little in the future.

If we look at scientists of the past, they were versatile. The very same Mendeleev, he was not a member of the Academy of Sciences, he was a member of the Academy of Arts! He lived in a flat allocated by the University of St. Petersburg and hosted guests there on Saturdays, setting the table with a white tablecloth. And then, when they were about to leave, Dmitry Ivanovich asked them to sign on this tablecloth. And then his wife embroidered these signatures – Repin, Mussorgsky, whoever was there! It’s amazing. He organized seminars in Solovki once a month. And one of them was dedicated to colour. He invited physicists, chemists, artists, painters, theatrical performers, and each of them spoke at this seminar, telling what they understood by the word ‘colour’.

The physicist says it’s radiation, the chemist says it’s a mixture of such-and-such components, the painter reasoned how the red colour reminds him of blood and he can’t look at red cloths calmly. All of this was interesting to people In this respect, the fact that Dubna will have such a landmark – the ” Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” panel – is great, of course. Different people will look at it from their own point of view, perceive it differently – that’s very encouraging!

Eleonora Yamaleeva talked

Photos by Elena Puzynina

Source – JINR weekly newspaper “Dubna: science, community, progress