Mendeleyevs dream : the quest for the elements In this elegant erudite but entertaining book Paul Strathern the award winning novelist and expositor of complex ideas unravels the dramatic history of chemistry through the quest for the elements. Framing this history is the life story of the nineteenth century Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev who fell asleep at his desk and awoke after conceiving the periodic table in a dream the template upon which modern chemistry is founded and the formulation of which marked chemistrys coming of age as a science. From ancient philosophy through medieval alchemy to the splitting of the atom this is the true story of the birth of chemistry and the role of one mans dream.