Answer to Question #126347 in Chemistry for Kelly

Question

Dmitri Mendeleev was a chemist who made predictions about elements that had not yet been discovered. One of the elements he made predictions about was gallium. He originally called gallium eka-aluminium , suggest why he may have given the undiscovered element this name

Answer 1

Dmitri Mendeleev used Sanskrit prefixes in order to link the name of the predicted element to its place in the periodic table. Thus, eka- (from Sanskrit it is 1), eka-aluminium is situated one place down from (or sits below) the element aluminium Al. Mendeleev predicted not only the existence of this element, but also its density and molar mass. A French scientist, who was the first to get a gallium sample, did wrong measurements and blamed Mendeleev. But Mendeleev was sure of his result. Finally, other scientists found that the measurements were wrong. Anyway, at the end of the day, gallium was named in honor of France.