International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements Was Launched

14:02, February 7, 2019

Valery Charushin, UrFU professor, visited the opening ceremony in Paris

The UN General Assembly proclaimed 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. This large-scale event marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (1869) by the outstanding Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev.

More than 1,300 people from 80 countries of the world were participants and guests of the International Year of the Periodic Table launching ceremony at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Scientists, politicians, leaders of international, scientific, educational institutions, representatives of business companies and public associations were among them. Valery Charushin, Ural Federal University professor, Chairman of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, participated in the event as well.

‘The year 2019 is the year of chemistry,’ Valery Charushin says. ‘Today, the entire global chemical science community is focusing particular attention and paying homage to this greatest discovery that has changed our lives. Dmitri Mendeleev is recognized by the whole community as the father of the periodic table. He discovered it in 1869, when he was 35 years old. Then there were 63 elements in the table, and now there are 118 of them. Few people know that seven years before the occasion he received the famous Demidov Prize for writing the first Russian textbook on organic chemistry.’

Mikhail Kotyukov, the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Alexander Sergeev, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pierre Corvol, the President of the French Academy of Sciences, and Audrey Azoulay, the Director-General of UNESCO, took part in the ceremony.

As part of the events in Paris, one could visit an international exhibition dedicated to chemistry and modern achievements in the field of chemical science. Russia, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, USA, Switzerland, China, Japan and Scotland presented their expositions at the exhibition.

Very soon, the exposition will move to Moscow and will continue work from February 6 in the days of the launching the International Year of the Periodic Table in Russia. More than 500 popular science and educational events aimed at directing the attention of schoolchildren, students and young people in general to science and its achievements will be held within the framework of the International Year in all regions of Russia.