Mendeleyev dutifully completed his studies and eventually landed a position at the local university. There he was a competent but not terribly outstanding chemist, known more for his wild hair and beard, which he had trimmed just once a year, than for his gifts in the laboratory. However, in 1869, at the age ofthirty-five, he began to toy with a way to arrange the elements. At the time, elements were normally grouped in two ways—either by atomic weight(using Avogadro’s Principle) or by common properties (whether they were metals or gases, for instance). Mendeleyev’s breakthrough was to see that the two could be combined in a single table.
门捷列夫兢兢业业地完成了学业，最后任职于当地的一所大学。他在那里是个称职的而又不很突出的化学家，更以他乱蓬蓬的头发和胡子而不是以他在实验室里的才华知名。他的头发和胡子每年只修剪一次。 然而，1869年，在他35岁的那一年，他开始琢磨元素的排列方法。当时，元素通常以两种方法排列--要么按照原子量（使用阿伏伽德罗定律），要么按照普通的性质（比如，是金属还是气体）。门捷列夫的创新在于，他发现二者可以合在一张表上。

As is often the way in science, the principle had actually been anticipated three years previously by anamateur chemist in England named John Newlands. He suggested that when elements were arranged by weight they appeared to repeat certain properties—in a sense to harmonize—at every eighth place along the scale. Slightly unwisely, for this was an idea whose time had not quite yet come, Newlands called it the Law of Octaves and likened the arrangement to the octaves on a piano keyboard. Perhaps there was somethingin Newlands’s manner of presentation, but the idea was considered fundamentally preposterous and widelymocked. At gatherings, droller members of the audience would sometimes ask him if he could get his elements to play them a little tune. Discouraged, Newlands gave up pushing the idea and soon dropped from view altogether.
实际上，门捷列夫的方法，3年以前一位名叫约翰·纽兰兹的英格兰业余化学家已经提出过，这是科学上常有的事。纽兰兹认为，如果元素按照原子量来进行排列，它们似乎依次每隔8个位置重复某些特点--从某种意义上说，和谐一致。有点不大聪明的是--因为这么做时间还不成熟--纽兰兹将其命名为"八度定律"，把这种安排比做钢琴键盘上的八度音阶。纽兰兹的说法也许有点道理，但这种做法被认为是完全荒谬的，受到了众人的嘲笑。在集会上，有的爱开玩笑的听众有时候会问他，他能不能用他的元素来弹个小曲子。纽兰兹灰心丧气，没有再研究下去，不久就销声匿迹了。