Which element is named after Dmitri Mendeleev?

Which element is named after Dmitri Mendeleev? Mendelevium. The synthetic element mendelevium, symbol Md, was named in honor of Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist associated with the periodic table.

Mendelevium is element 101 and belongs to the actinide series. It does not occur in useful natural quantities; scientists create it by nuclear reactions. In 1955, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, bombarded einsteinium with alpha particles and detected the new element one atom at a time. The first identified isotope was mendelevium-256.

The naming was notable because the discovery occurred during the Cold War and honored a Russian scientist. The name was accepted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in 1955; its symbol was later standardized as Md.

Mendeleev developed his influential periodic system in the 1860s and left gaps for elements not yet discovered. He also predicted properties of several missing elements, including gallium, scandium and germanium. Mendelevium was named for his contribution, not because he discovered it.