Much has been said about the accuracy of the famous predictions of the Russian chemist Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev, but far less has been written on how he made his predictions. Here we offer an explanation on how Mendeleev used his periodic system to predict both physical and chemical properties of little-known and entirely unknown chemical elements. We argue that there seems to be compelling evidence in favour of Mendeleev genuinely relying on his periodic system in the course of issuing his predictions—a point recently contested by Woody (in: Soler, Zwart, Lynch, Israel-Jost (eds) Science after the practice turn in the philosophy, history, and social studies of science, Routledge, Abington, 2014). In particular, by using the known properties of a number of near neighbours of the three entirely unknown elements (the so-called eka-elements), we seek to show how the very format of his table enabled it to function as a powerful tool for Mendeleev in arriving at his predicted values. We suggest that Mendeleev’s use of the periodic system in making his prediction gives an illuminative example of what Woody calls “theoretical practices” in science.

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门捷列夫如何发表他的预测：评论安德烈伍迪

关于俄罗斯化学家德米特里·伊万诺维奇·门捷列夫 (Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev) 著名预测的准确性，人们已经说了很多，但关于他如何做出预测的文章却很少。在这里，我们解释了门捷列夫如何使用他的周期系统来预测鲜为人知和完全未知的化学元素的物理和化学性质。我们认为似乎有令人信服的证据支持门捷列夫在发布他的预测的过程中真正依赖他的周期系统——伍迪最近对这一点提出异议（在：索勒、兹沃特、林奇、以色列约斯特（编辑）科学之后实践转向科学的哲学、历史和社会研究，劳特利奇，阿宾顿，2014 年）。特别是，通过使用三个完全未知的元素（所谓的 eka 元素）的许多近邻的已知特性，我们试图展示他的表格的格式如何使它成为门捷列夫得出他的预测值的强大工具。我们认为，门捷列夫在进行预测时使用周期系统为伍迪所说的科学中的“理论实践”提供了一个有启发性的例子。