This essay elaborates on Ursula Klein’s methodological concept of “paper tools” by drawing on several examples from the history of the periodic table. Moving from John A. R. Newlands’s “Law of Octaves,” to Dmitrii Mendeleev’s first drafts of his periodic system in 1869, to Mendeleev’s chemical speculations on the place of the ether within his classification, one sees that the ways in which the scientists presented the balance between empirical data and theoretical manipulation proved crucial for the chemical community’s acceptance or rejection of their proposed innovations. This negotiated balance illustrates an underemphasised feature of Klein’s conceptualisation of the ways in which a paper tool generates new knowledge

中文翻译：

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纸制工具和周期表：纽兰兹和门捷列夫绘制网格

本文通过引用元素周期表历史中的几个例子，详细阐述了 Ursula Klein 的“纸质工具”的方法论概念。从约翰·纽兰兹的“八度定律”，到德米特里·门捷列夫 1869 年的周期系统初稿，再到门捷列夫对醚在他的分类中的位置的化学推测，人们看到科学家们呈现之间平衡的方式经验数据和理论操作证明对于化学界接受或拒绝他们提出的创新至关重要。这种协商平衡说明了克莱因关于纸质工具产生新知识的方式的概念化的一个被低估的特征