Who was Henry Moseley?

Henry Moseley (1887-1915): A British chemist, Henry Moseley studied under Rutherford and brilliantly developed the application of X-ray spectra to study atomic structure; Moseley's discoveries resulted in a more accurate positioning of elements in the Periodic Table by closer determination of atomic numbers. Tragically for the development of science, Moseley was killed in action at Gallipoli in 1915.

In 1913, almost fifty years after Mendeleev, Henry Moseley published the results of his measurements of the wavelengths of the X-ray spectral lines of a number of elements which showed that the ordering of the wavelengths of the X-ray emissions of the elements coincided with the ordering of the elements by atomic number. With the discovery of isotopes of the elements, it became apparent that atomic weight was not the significant player in the periodic law as Mendeleev, Meyers and others had proposed, but rather, the properties of the elements varied periodically with atomic number.

When atoms were arranged according to increasing atomic number, the few problems with Mendeleev's periodic table had disappeared. Because of Moseley's work, the modern periodic table is based on the atomic numbers of the elements.

Custom Search

Moseley's Published Paper...

• The High Frequency Spectra of the Elements