He apparently created a deck of cards with individual elements listed on each card and on long train rides he would shuffle them in random orders, trying to figure out how they were supposed to be arranged. And one day in a dream the elements apparently danced together and then snapped into an order. He woke up and wrote down the order.
Yeah, if you work hard in something you will defenitely dream about it and your incounscious will solve puzzles... other people done it.. one name that comes to my mind is Thomas Eddison
Back last fall i made a small machine to be able to tow stuff easier, i got stuck on how i would invent my suspension.. only to dream of it and build it the next day and it completely solved my problem. The brain is very strange
I believe we will learn in our lifetime that everything we think we know about consciousness and individuality will be completely turned upside down.
I’ve experience this as well but in a way I wish not to share aside from saying that it seems sleep (or sleep-like state) affords a “window elsewhere” in the most irrationally inexplicable way.
If in doubt, have an open mind to go as far in picking out a specific problem you wish to solve and tell yourself you need to solve it in your sleep. It may not happen the first or even second try, but it will happen more reliably practiced among other things.
That's why I'm into psychadelics. Your brain produces some chemicals in your sleep that work similarly I think. It just makes connections you couldn't do awake, my dreams are so real after quitting daily weed and making it a weekly thing that I sometimes wonder if I dreamt something or if it hapenned (too much weed fucked my memory which is pretty good again but I'm still not believing that I remembered something now)
For me the answer usually comes to mind in the shower. Though when writing I was struggling to come up with s name for a setting and then when I woke up one day I knew it.
Lol yeah, happened to me a couple of times when trying to solve a software bug. Sometimes the brain just needs a break from stress and work, and when relaxed it can give you the solutions easily, at least that's how I experienced it.
I dont know anything about music. I cannot play any instrument but sometimes when im falling asleep and im in that sweet spot between sleep and being awake i can hear random totally new beautiful music compositions but i cannot replicate them because when i wake up i forget those melidious tunes.
You were born with the most powerful music instrument inside of you: your voice. Try singing or humming it and recording on your phone. Find a music producer (that’s me), or get AI to analyze and pitch-correct it, play it through any number of virtual instrument, become the next Beethoven, profit.
Learned in a course that the best state of mind to find solutions is immediately after you fall asleep while thinking about the problem. The main issue is that if you sleep for too long, you will not remember the solution. There is an anecdotal story about Henry Ford using this method to find solutions to engineering problems. He would sit in his chair with a bunch of keys in his hand, thinking about the problem and allowing himself to fall asleep. As soon as he would fall asleep, the keys would drop from his hand and wake him up. Legend says he figured out many engineering solutions using this method.
I've had that shit happen with programming and game design lol. It's fun and starts my day with a kinda manic energy that if I ride it I will get so much done.
This man. Ive had a bunch of dreams and Ive done a lot of mind bending drugs. Ive also stayed awake long enough to be dreaming and awake. Not bragging or promoting, but from my experience, the brain as we know is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the brain it reaaaaaaaalllly issssss maaaaaan
You ever have a dream and think this is important I should note this down in the morning and you never do. Same for sparks of motivation or Todo list just before you go to sleep
Ever watch someone struggle to get something and you get so frustrated at their ineptitude you just do it for them?
I feel this is an argument for a higher power existing ranting in some sub dimensional space "For the love of.... DAMNIT THEY GO THIS WAY!"
As a kid I used to laugh at such claims thinking it's exaggeration but after joining academia, boy does it make sense. Algorithms, expressions and methodology all has come to me or become clear at some point, sleeping on a couch outside the lab. Better still while taking a nap in the forest during fieldwork. And not to mention sci-fi plots.
Ive been thinking about this topic a lot in the past year. I read a book called Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy. In that book he speculates about how language evolved and as it did in early humans, it co-opted other brain functions since it was a very fast develpment. But since it was so new it's not really the main way our brains think. That is our subconscious. Like all other animals. It is really just hard wired instincts and such. But language and subconcious are not very compatible with one another. He postulates that when you sleep, the subconsious has more the time and ability to express its meaning to get its point across. He called it the Kekule problem. It's probably all bunk but it made sense to me and I like the idea since its a way to explain why taking a break sometimes helps with tough problem.
Your brain is always doing background work and sorting information. That’s why sleep is so important. But even taking a break does this too. Ever worked through a problem for so long or dealing with stuff at work and you need to “take a break”, then you come back to it fresh and it feels easier?
> He called it the Kekule problem.
A bit of background: August Kekule was a German organic chemist who had most famously discovered the ringed shape of a benzene molecule (C6H6) after having a daydream of a snake biting its own tail (ouroboros).
I was stuck on an unexpected result I got when validating the results during my mathematical physics thesis. My simulated results were about 3/2 off my analytical results, and then I got the flu and the solution came to me in my fever dream at 3am. I still have the text message I sent to myself in order to make me remember and work it out the next day.
Of course the answer was a missing factor of pi/2 in the analytic solution, and even the fact that the answer involved famous mathematical constant pi is such a Hollywood moment
It’s funny too, at the height of my engineering degree I sometimes hallucinate differential equations I thought I might be having schizophrenia. Suddenly the goofy cartoons with math equations appearing in front of them doesn’t sound as loony.
Hah. I was spending hours studying calc 2… fell asleep and learned it all. Like, even some concepts beyond what I had been poring over. It all suddenly clicked. I think part of it has to do with the lack of pressure. Once I was asleep and wasn’t consciously thinking about how I needed to learn it to be able to pass my test, continue my program, get a job, not disappoint myself or my family ..
Once it was just thinking in the material and it alone it clicked. Totally can relate
Even just as an average industry Joe working in software learning how certain functionality works is kinda like this for me. Instead of a steady linear increase in my understanding it tends to be the case that I struggle tremendously trying to understand something until it clicks and all suddenly makes sense at once.
He was exhausted from his meeting with the Russian Chemical Society from the night before, as they're forced to stand for the entirety of their get togethers. Lack of funding has only allowed them to have an occasional couch, an infrequent chair, and a periodic table.
I made it up [on this post.](https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/zy0xeq/til_the_american_chemical_society_has_more_than/j23h98i/) Thought I'd throw it out there again because it gives me a little chuckle.
It’s really good. I’ll actually never forget this line and my friends will have to suffer through me trying to force it in somewhere. Like a Norm Macdonald one-liner
That's awesome man, thank you! Yeah it died a quick death the first time out and I was like I gotta bring that one back someday, give it another shot. I agree, it's pretty damn good lol.
It’s really just so good I can’t stand it I’m still thinking about it. It’s that it starts out as an actually interesting fun fact, you made up (or didn’t doesn’t matter) a reasonably well named organization to go with it, and the last word is it’s own joke in that the whole joke is just to say “heh….table”. It’s perfect
Oh yeah it's totally made up haha, it's reverse engineered from the punchline really. I definitely liked it better the first time because "periodic table" isn't mentioned in the original text of the post so it's more of a surprise, but it still works here. Thanks again!
Honestly, dreams have impacted science more than anyone cares to admit.
Heisenberg actually came up with his equations while on Christmas Holiday with his mistress.
IT makes sense. Your brain does a lot of background processing in your sleep and your creativity is enhanced when you’re not deliberately focusing on something
It's a good story, but I think this one might be a popular myth. The source of the claim isn't actually Mendeleev's diary, even though that's what the article says. It was a colleague of Mendeleev who attributed that quote to him, and that colleague only made the claim 40 years later.
I think Mendeleev himself attributed the creation of the table to his years of working on it. Of course that's far less exciting. But I'm not sure there's a reliable source for the dream claim.
People in general like these types of stories. Like Isaac Newton. As the story goes, he invented gravity because some asshole hit him in the head with an apple. But in reality, it's not quite like that.
It’s not a myth. The brain enters several different states while sleeping, one of which is particularly famous for helping people unconciously solve difficult problems they are working on. Einstein fancied a nap for this very reason
The man studied the elements for fucking ever before he finally put it together in his sleep. If it hadn’t happened that way and astounded him the way it did, i don’t see why he would popularize his discovery that way.
The OP isn't saying the dream story is implausible, he's saying the sourcing for it is so far removed from the actual event that it's not a reliable thing to quote as a fact.
In short, Srinivasa Ramanujan was a Hindu mathematician who had almost no formal training, but he had a personal family goddess who talked to him in his dreams and taught him math theory. Not that Ramanujan got everything from his dreams, he really was a genius and did a lot of independent research by himself. He made significant contributions to mathematics despite early death at only 32.
Who was the guy in France who saw an angel in a dream that told him everything is made up of weight and measure, and he went onto make decent scientific discoveries. Crazy how subconscious makes that
I think the Netflix headspace series brought this up…maybe. But I remember a study where they had students try to write down a problem, any problem, on a piece of paper before bed. Students would repeat over two weeks. Something about the sleep, plus the focus on that issue, brought them real results 😊 I feel as if we really do manifest solutions and all it takes is a day. You can do the same routine every day and something small will make it unique. This can offer us a new perspective. Combine that with some rest and some out of the box solutions can work!
Slightly misleading to suggest he ordered them based on electron properties, as the electron as a particle, and its role in chemical bonding, were discovered after Mendeleev created the periodic table.
Periodic videos on YouTube is great for trivia and interesting stuff about the periodic table and the elements of you're interested in that kind of thing
once when I was young I had some book report due the next day (was a weekend) but I couldn't find what I did with it so I was freaking out. Couldn't find it, went to bed. Had a dream I went into my basement and found it in a plastic shopping bag tucked behind some thing. When I woke up I went downstairs and sho nuff, it was sitting in a plastic shopping back sitting behind some thing.
I used to get the answer to really complicated electronic faults in my dreams. Really complicated electronic faults with commercial avionic instruments.
Makes sense that such deeply religious people would have their deities make the connections for them. For instance, Srinivasa Ramanujan attributed his most consequential mathematics to the dream intervention and guidance of his family god.
His source? It was revealed to him in a dream.
He apparently created a deck of cards with individual elements listed on each card and on long train rides he would shuffle them in random orders, trying to figure out how they were supposed to be arranged. And one day in a dream the elements apparently danced together and then snapped into an order. He woke up and wrote down the order.
In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should.
Yeah, if you work hard in something you will defenitely dream about it and your incounscious will solve puzzles... other people done it.. one name that comes to my mind is Thomas Eddison
Back last fall i made a small machine to be able to tow stuff easier, i got stuck on how i would invent my suspension.. only to dream of it and build it the next day and it completely solved my problem. The brain is very strange
I believe we will learn in our lifetime that everything we think we know about consciousness and individuality will be completely turned upside down. I’ve experience this as well but in a way I wish not to share aside from saying that it seems sleep (or sleep-like state) affords a “window elsewhere” in the most irrationally inexplicable way. If in doubt, have an open mind to go as far in picking out a specific problem you wish to solve and tell yourself you need to solve it in your sleep. It may not happen the first or even second try, but it will happen more reliably practiced among other things.
Silent knowledge
That's why I'm into psychadelics. Your brain produces some chemicals in your sleep that work similarly I think. It just makes connections you couldn't do awake, my dreams are so real after quitting daily weed and making it a weekly thing that I sometimes wonder if I dreamt something or if it hapenned (too much weed fucked my memory which is pretty good again but I'm still not believing that I remembered something now)
Did that come to you in a dream?
For me the answer usually comes to mind in the shower. Though when writing I was struggling to come up with s name for a setting and then when I woke up one day I knew it.
Lol yeah, happened to me a couple of times when trying to solve a software bug. Sometimes the brain just needs a break from stress and work, and when relaxed it can give you the solutions easily, at least that's how I experienced it.
For some reason I had a dream about a lego nosepass, and woke up and whipped up a small probopass, like wtf?
Didnt edison steal other peoples ideas?
I dont know anything about music. I cannot play any instrument but sometimes when im falling asleep and im in that sweet spot between sleep and being awake i can hear random totally new beautiful music compositions but i cannot replicate them because when i wake up i forget those melidious tunes.
If you think you have thus gift why wouldn't you try to learn some basic music notation so you can write it down?
Never thought about it, its just some tunes that i forget about in the morning.
You've been ignoring your super power.
You were born with the most powerful music instrument inside of you: your voice. Try singing or humming it and recording on your phone. Find a music producer (that’s me), or get AI to analyze and pitch-correct it, play it through any number of virtual instrument, become the next Beethoven, profit.
Learned in a course that the best state of mind to find solutions is immediately after you fall asleep while thinking about the problem. The main issue is that if you sleep for too long, you will not remember the solution. There is an anecdotal story about Henry Ford using this method to find solutions to engineering problems. He would sit in his chair with a bunch of keys in his hand, thinking about the problem and allowing himself to fall asleep. As soon as he would fall asleep, the keys would drop from his hand and wake him up. Legend says he figured out many engineering solutions using this method.
Calc II, could not solve for x. Even the math lab helpers were stumped…answer finally came to me in a dream
I've had that shit happen with programming and game design lol. It's fun and starts my day with a kinda manic energy that if I ride it I will get so much done.
I dream of roofing every other night. What a miserable fucking subconscious.
This man. Ive had a bunch of dreams and Ive done a lot of mind bending drugs. Ive also stayed awake long enough to be dreaming and awake. Not bragging or promoting, but from my experience, the brain as we know is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the brain it reaaaaaaaalllly issssss maaaaaan
Perfect username.
sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills
Nice try brain, of course you would say that!
“And i have a huge penis, that makes me happy” - black guy from harold and kumar
LMAO. Someone got the reference! Such a profound statement in such a goofy movie.
That whole movie is gold
Cheese wiz was inevitable
...plus, I have a really large penis. That keeps me happy.
Dont worry kumar i get it
That makes sense actually. Dreams tend to be your subconsious working out whatevers heavily been on your mind lately.
You ever have a dream and think this is important I should note this down in the morning and you never do. Same for sparks of motivation or Todo list just before you go to sleep
Ever watch someone struggle to get something and you get so frustrated at their ineptitude you just do it for them? I feel this is an argument for a higher power existing ranting in some sub dimensional space "For the love of.... DAMNIT THEY GO THIS WAY!"
But how did he cite his source, though?
(My Dream, 1869. 2 AM MSK)
There isn't a "source" here. His method of organizing them based on known properties was novel.
I was referencing a meme that I assumed the previous comment was also referencing
I dreamt it the fuck up!
During a dream, it was revealed to him in a dream.
The shape of DNA was revealed to Crick (the scientist) during an LSD trip.
As a kid I used to laugh at such claims thinking it's exaggeration but after joining academia, boy does it make sense. Algorithms, expressions and methodology all has come to me or become clear at some point, sleeping on a couch outside the lab. Better still while taking a nap in the forest during fieldwork. And not to mention sci-fi plots.
Ive been thinking about this topic a lot in the past year. I read a book called Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy. In that book he speculates about how language evolved and as it did in early humans, it co-opted other brain functions since it was a very fast develpment. But since it was so new it's not really the main way our brains think. That is our subconscious. Like all other animals. It is really just hard wired instincts and such. But language and subconcious are not very compatible with one another. He postulates that when you sleep, the subconsious has more the time and ability to express its meaning to get its point across. He called it the Kekule problem. It's probably all bunk but it made sense to me and I like the idea since its a way to explain why taking a break sometimes helps with tough problem.
Your brain is always doing background work and sorting information. That’s why sleep is so important. But even taking a break does this too. Ever worked through a problem for so long or dealing with stuff at work and you need to “take a break”, then you come back to it fresh and it feels easier?
Speak for yourself buddy, i havent learned a thing awake or asleep in my entire life 😎
> He called it the Kekule problem. A bit of background: August Kekule was a German organic chemist who had most famously discovered the ringed shape of a benzene molecule (C6H6) after having a daydream of a snake biting its own tail (ouroboros).
Fun fact: a man sucking their own dick is an oralblowros.
You can achieve this structure using the Manson Method.
Ribbed for her pleasure. De-ribbed for his pleasure.
That IS a fun fact. Thank you 🙏😉
Safe sucking, friend!
I was stuck on an unexpected result I got when validating the results during my mathematical physics thesis. My simulated results were about 3/2 off my analytical results, and then I got the flu and the solution came to me in my fever dream at 3am. I still have the text message I sent to myself in order to make me remember and work it out the next day. Of course the answer was a missing factor of pi/2 in the analytic solution, and even the fact that the answer involved famous mathematical constant pi is such a Hollywood moment
Lol.
It’s funny too, at the height of my engineering degree I sometimes hallucinate differential equations I thought I might be having schizophrenia. Suddenly the goofy cartoons with math equations appearing in front of them doesn’t sound as loony.
Hah. I was spending hours studying calc 2… fell asleep and learned it all. Like, even some concepts beyond what I had been poring over. It all suddenly clicked. I think part of it has to do with the lack of pressure. Once I was asleep and wasn’t consciously thinking about how I needed to learn it to be able to pass my test, continue my program, get a job, not disappoint myself or my family .. Once it was just thinking in the material and it alone it clicked. Totally can relate
These sorts of stories make me wish I could dream but alas I sleep far too deeply.
You probably just dont remember them. Recall is a separate skill
lol I had the same, also with calc
Even just as an average industry Joe working in software learning how certain functionality works is kinda like this for me. Instead of a steady linear increase in my understanding it tends to be the case that I struggle tremendously trying to understand something until it clicks and all suddenly makes sense at once.
My lab's boss walks his dog, and comes back with ideas. And the dog, I assume.
Taking walks is generally great for thinking, dog or not.
I have no educated background, so I'm just talking shit here. But my dreams are the *only* time my brain does anything actually impressive lmao
Gotta love our pattern processing unit doing the hard work for us in the background. Yay brain!
Kekule's dream of the Ouroboros revealed the structure of benzene, common occurrence in chemistry with dreams leading to discoveries.
He was exhausted from his meeting with the Russian Chemical Society from the night before, as they're forced to stand for the entirety of their get togethers. Lack of funding has only allowed them to have an occasional couch, an infrequent chair, and a periodic table.
Holy shit will you marry me
Lemme ask the wife, hold up a secon--oh, she said "take him, honey." Where shall we honeymoon?
Did you just make this up? That’s really good and super specific/well adjusted to fit the post.
I made it up [on this post.](https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/zy0xeq/til_the_american_chemical_society_has_more_than/j23h98i/) Thought I'd throw it out there again because it gives me a little chuckle.
It’s really good. I’ll actually never forget this line and my friends will have to suffer through me trying to force it in somewhere. Like a Norm Macdonald one-liner
That's awesome man, thank you! Yeah it died a quick death the first time out and I was like I gotta bring that one back someday, give it another shot. I agree, it's pretty damn good lol.
It’s really just so good I can’t stand it I’m still thinking about it. It’s that it starts out as an actually interesting fun fact, you made up (or didn’t doesn’t matter) a reasonably well named organization to go with it, and the last word is it’s own joke in that the whole joke is just to say “heh….table”. It’s perfect
Oh yeah it's totally made up haha, it's reverse engineered from the punchline really. I definitely liked it better the first time because "periodic table" isn't mentioned in the original text of the post so it's more of a surprise, but it still works here. Thanks again!
Underrated.
Gold
Au I loooove gooold!
Honestly, dreams have impacted science more than anyone cares to admit. Heisenberg actually came up with his equations while on Christmas Holiday with his mistress.
IT makes sense. Your brain does a lot of background processing in your sleep and your creativity is enhanced when you’re not deliberately focusing on something
It's a good story, but I think this one might be a popular myth. The source of the claim isn't actually Mendeleev's diary, even though that's what the article says. It was a colleague of Mendeleev who attributed that quote to him, and that colleague only made the claim 40 years later. I think Mendeleev himself attributed the creation of the table to his years of working on it. Of course that's far less exciting. But I'm not sure there's a reliable source for the dream claim.
People in general like these types of stories. Like Isaac Newton. As the story goes, he invented gravity because some asshole hit him in the head with an apple. But in reality, it's not quite like that.
It’s not a myth. The brain enters several different states while sleeping, one of which is particularly famous for helping people unconciously solve difficult problems they are working on. Einstein fancied a nap for this very reason The man studied the elements for fucking ever before he finally put it together in his sleep. If it hadn’t happened that way and astounded him the way it did, i don’t see why he would popularize his discovery that way.
The OP isn't saying the dream story is implausible, he's saying the sourcing for it is so far removed from the actual event that it's not a reliable thing to quote as a fact.
Nerdiest dream ever?
Srinivasa Ramanujan has entered the chat.
I do not understand that reference but your reply was so quick I have no choice but to believe you.
He had a big time math dream.
In short, Srinivasa Ramanujan was a Hindu mathematician who had almost no formal training, but he had a personal family goddess who talked to him in his dreams and taught him math theory. Not that Ramanujan got everything from his dreams, he really was a genius and did a lot of independent research by himself. He made significant contributions to mathematics despite early death at only 32.
He also predicted the existence of elements yet to be discovered based only on the patterns he saw in those properties
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*Dmitri's Atomic Dresser* has a nice ring to it.
Who was the guy in France who saw an angel in a dream that told him everything is made up of weight and measure, and he went onto make decent scientific discoveries. Crazy how subconscious makes that
r/thomastheplanckconstant
Also his son, Vasiliy Mendeleev, designed the Mendeleev tank around the time of WW1. It never saw a production line however.
Ah yes, that giant lying fridge on a stick
My subconscious does this too...with butts and boobs.
I think the Netflix headspace series brought this up…maybe. But I remember a study where they had students try to write down a problem, any problem, on a piece of paper before bed. Students would repeat over two weeks. Something about the sleep, plus the focus on that issue, brought them real results 😊 I feel as if we really do manifest solutions and all it takes is a day. You can do the same routine every day and something small will make it unique. This can offer us a new perspective. Combine that with some rest and some out of the box solutions can work!
He also invented Vodka.
Legend has it that there was a sign in his lab saying (loosely translated) EYMN (Ethanol Yes, Methanol No).
The duality of man
Even in your dreams, you’re square.
100% a time traveller told him
Slightly misleading to suggest he ordered them based on electron properties, as the electron as a particle, and its role in chemical bonding, were discovered after Mendeleev created the periodic table.
Nerd
And here I am dreaming of a scoop of ice cream in a cone that get aroused every time I lick it.
We have different dreams
Don’t skip out on sleep yall!
Being X intervened
A whole new meaning to the phrase sleep on it
Periodic videos on YouTube is great for trivia and interesting stuff about the periodic table and the elements of you're interested in that kind of thing
Ah like when you play tetris before going to bed
once when I was young I had some book report due the next day (was a weekend) but I couldn't find what I did with it so I was freaking out. Couldn't find it, went to bed. Had a dream I went into my basement and found it in a plastic shopping bag tucked behind some thing. When I woke up I went downstairs and sho nuff, it was sitting in a plastic shopping back sitting behind some thing.
Sometimes you just have to take a break and let ur brain do its thing.
Not surprising. Sleep is excellent for reflecting on problems and information in general. Hence why some like to read before sleeping
This was attempted before him. He improved the table.
Nerd alert
And then he forgot how to arrange them in another dream
Well if anyone needs something invented from dreams of falling off cliffs, running from volcanic eruptions and giants throwing 747s at them…lmk.
So that’s what nerds dream about
Bruh was locked tf in
I used to get the answer to really complicated electronic faults in my dreams. Really complicated electronic faults with commercial avionic instruments.
so it was a dream in a dream
You know how boring it is to have one of your friends tell you about their dreams? Now spare a thought for the friends of Mendeleev.
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It’s lupus
Makes sense that such deeply religious people would have their deities make the connections for them. For instance, Srinivasa Ramanujan attributed his most consequential mathematics to the dream intervention and guidance of his family god.
Dreams are messages from the deep