Periodic table
Russian chemistry professor Dmitri Mendeleev and German chemist Julius Lothar Meyer independently published their periodic tables in 1869 and 1870, respectively. Mendeleev's table was his first published version; that of Meyer was an expanded version of his (Meyer's) table of 1864. They both constructed their tables by listing the elements in rows or columns in order of atomic weight and starting a new row or column when the characteristics of the elements began to repeat.
Primo Levi
He wrote two other highly praised memoirs, ("Moments of Reprieve", 1978) and ("The Periodic Table", 1975). "Moments of Reprieve" deals with characters he observed during imprisonment. "The Periodic Table" is a collection of short pieces, based in episodes from his life but including two short stories that he wrote before his time in Auschwitz. Each story was related in some way to one of the chemical elements. At London's Royal Institution on 19 October 2006, "The Periodic Table" was voted onto the shortlist for the best science book ever written.