In 1850, a 16-year-old boy from Siberia named Dmitri Mendeleev walked nearly 1,000 miles—yes, on foot!—all the way to Moscow to apply to a university.
Guess what? They rejected him.
But that wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.
Instead of giving up, he walked even farther to St. Petersburg, where he was finally accepted. He didn’t just study there—he changed science forever.
🧪 The Man Who Saw the Invisible
Years later, Mendeleev did something no one had ever done. He created the Periodic Table—a way to organize all the known elements by their properties. But here’s the amazing part:
He left blank spaces in the table and said, “Don’t worry, science will discover these elements later.”
People thought he was crazy.
But he was right.
Years later, those exact elements—like gallium and germanium—were discovered, and they fit perfectly into the blanks he had predicted. 🧩 It was like solving a puzzle before all the pieces even existed!
💡 Fun & Surprising Facts
- Mendeleev once used vodka to explain chemistry! He studied how alcohol and water mix, and even helped standardize vodka to 40% alcohol in Russia.
- He packed so much knowledge into his life that he wrote more than 400 scientific papers.
- He once said, “There is nothing in this world more difficult than writing a textbook.” (He should know—he wrote a few!)
🚫 Rejected, but Not Defeated
Did you know other geniuses were also rejected before changing the world?
- Albert Einstein was told he would “never amount to much” by one of his teachers.
- Walt Disney was once fired for “lacking creativity.”
- J.K. Rowling got rejected by 12 publishers before someone agreed to publish Harry Potter.
Rejection isn’t the end. Sometimes it’s life’s way of saying, “Not this door—try the next one.”
✨ What We Can Learn
Mendeleev’s story shows us that even when the world says “no”, you can keep moving forward. One step at a time. One dream at a time.
If a boy from a small village could walk across Russia and change the world of science—we can keep walking too.
👉 So remember:
Keep going. Your next step might be the one that changes everything.