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To those who had to memorize the periodic table of the elements in school, add a new atom to your list: element 112, whose discovery has now been verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the world authority on chemical nomenclature.
Element 112 is the heaviest element in the periodic table, 277 times heavier than hydrogen. To produce 112, scientists took charged zinc atoms and fired them through a 120 meter long particle accelerator onto lead. When the zinc and the lead nuclei merged – or fused, making this a nuclear fusion reaction – a new element with 112 protons was formed (30 protons from zinc plus 82 from lead).
The new element didn’t last long. It decayed in less than a second, requiring rapid and sensitive methods to detect its fleeting existence.
The team that discovers an element is honored by proposing a name.
Suggested names include Obamantium and Emergencium.
Alas, Sigurd Hofmann and his colleagues have proposed copernicium (to be abbreviated Cp), in honor of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish scientist and astronomer who discovered that the planets in our solar system orbit the sun.
“After IUPAC officially recognized our discovery, we – that is all scientists involved in the discovery – agreed on proposing the name copernicium for the new element 112,” Hoffman said in a statement. “We would like to honor an outstanding scientist, who changed our view of the world.”
21 scientists from Finland, Germany, Russia and Slovakia were involved in the discovery.
The Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (Center for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Germany, where Hofmann is based, discovered the six most recent elements to be added to the periodic table: bohrium (107), hassium (108), meitnerium (109), darmstadtium (110), and roentgenium (111).
Why would a promising young scientist leave the lab to spend a year working for the United States government? Daniel Gorelick is here at the State Department trying to figure that out.
Comments (1)
LATTES
Location: Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse France
August 6, 2009 at 11:42 EDT
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Sir,
Few weeks ago I proposed another name for the element 112:
FLAMELLIUM or FLAMELIUM (Fl) in memory of Nicolas FLAMEL , one of the most Knew alchemist.
In my opinion it would be important to thank alchemists for their work ! They imagined the element transmutation (of course with their knowledge ! ) and the production of a new element is a transmutation.
Another possibility was :
PARACELSIUM (Pc) in memory of another alchemist Paracelse , but I prefer Fl , because N.Flamel was avery good man and his history is wonderful !