Spanish Year
Spain Celebrates Its Year of Science Honoring Mendeleev
The winter of 1907 was particularly cold in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mendeleev had suffered a bad flu since December. Despite this, he had to go to the Office of Weights and Measures, as the Minister of Trade and Industry had a visit scheduled for that day. That was a bad decision, since the effort further deteriorated his precarious health. Shortly thereafter, on 2 February, Mendeleev died at his home.
A hundred years later, Spain celebrated a Year of Science with a large number of activities and chose the Periodic Table, Mendeleev ‘s great legacy, as the official image of activities organized to promote chemistry in 2007 in Spain. This was an excellent opportunity to raise public awareness and promote chemistry.
Herein, Javier García-Martínez shares the ‘Spanish experience’, in the hope we can all celebrate again in 2011.