No word on Unobtanium
January 4, 2016 10:25 AM Subscribe
Scientists find four new elements and complete the periodic table's 7th period. Nearly five years after elements 114 (Flerovium) and 116 (Livermorium) were officially added to the periodic table of the elements, IUPAC is recognizing four more.
Get to know your friends in the 7th period:
element 113
element 115
element 117
element 118.
Get to know your friends in the 7th period:
element 113
element 115
element 117
element 118.
I'll see you all on the island of stability!
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on January 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on January 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
The IUPAC document How To Name New Chemical Elements makes for interesting reading. I noticed that it recommends using an '-ine' ending for 117 and '-on' for 118, and I hope they stick to that, because we haven't had a new element that wasn't somethingium since 1940.
posted by theodolite at 10:47 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 10:47 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
It seems odd to say that something has been "discovered" that was made in a lab. Was there a real chance that such superheavy atoms would not form at all? (How long do they have to remain in one piece to be an "atom"?
I held a bunch of tennis-balls together the other day and created an element I called tennisonium. Unfortunately it also has a very short half-life due to gravity and wind.
How do they establish the difference between just pushing a bunch of protons and neutrons together in one place temporarily and holding them together for a sec - vs forming an atom? Is there a difference?
posted by mary8nne at 10:49 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
I held a bunch of tennis-balls together the other day and created an element I called tennisonium. Unfortunately it also has a very short half-life due to gravity and wind.
How do they establish the difference between just pushing a bunch of protons and neutrons together in one place temporarily and holding them together for a sec - vs forming an atom? Is there a difference?
posted by mary8nne at 10:49 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
In the article, Paul Karol says, "The eighth period should be very interesting because relativistic effects on electrons become significant and difficult to pinpoint."
Can someone more knowledgeable explain what these relativistic effects are?
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 10:50 AM on January 4, 2016
Can someone more knowledgeable explain what these relativistic effects are?
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 10:50 AM on January 4, 2016
element 119 - somethingium
element 120 - wererunningoutofideasium
element 121 - lindadiscoveredthisium
posted by Fizz at 10:50 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
element 120 - wererunningoutofideasium
element 121 - lindadiscoveredthisium
posted by Fizz at 10:50 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I spenty a lot of time playing X-COM, and I hold out hope that Element 115 will eventually be named Elerium.
posted by Rob Rockets at 11:12 AM on January 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Rob Rockets at 11:12 AM on January 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
My Periodic Table mug is so out of date.
posted by theora55 at 11:13 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 11:13 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I still miss Unununium. Roentgenium just doesn't have the same ring to it.
posted by oulipian at 11:16 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by oulipian at 11:16 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I want to be all, "yay, science!" but these elements were synthesized, not discovered, and they exist for just a brief moment before becoming unstable. Should we perhaps set up different categories of synthesized elements? This that CAN exist in nature for a certain period of time, vs. those that are just ephemeral?
Wake me up when they find the island of stability.
posted by deanc at 11:16 AM on January 4, 2016
Wake me up when they find the island of stability.
posted by deanc at 11:16 AM on January 4, 2016
Can someone more knowledgeable explain what these relativistic effects are?
The energies involved get so high, you can't measure things effectively.
Relativistic quantum chemistry
Relativistic effects in chemistry can be considered to be perturbations, or small corrections, to the non-relativistic theory of chemistry, which is developed from the solutions of the Schrödinger equation. These corrections affect the electrons differently depending on the electron speed relative to the speed of light. Relativistic effects are more prominent in heavy elements because only in these elements do electrons attain relativistic speeds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:18 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
The energies involved get so high, you can't measure things effectively.
Relativistic quantum chemistry
Relativistic effects in chemistry can be considered to be perturbations, or small corrections, to the non-relativistic theory of chemistry, which is developed from the solutions of the Schrödinger equation. These corrections affect the electrons differently depending on the electron speed relative to the speed of light. Relativistic effects are more prominent in heavy elements because only in these elements do electrons attain relativistic speeds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:18 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unununium
That's my favorite Phil Collins song.
You're welcome for the earworm.
posted by The Tensor at 11:20 AM on January 4, 2016 [14 favorites]
That's my favorite Phil Collins song.
You're welcome for the earworm.
posted by The Tensor at 11:20 AM on January 4, 2016 [14 favorites]
It seems odd to say that something has been "discovered" that was made in a lab.
I believe the term stems from discovery science. In this case, the process is identifying chemical elements, verifying they exist, etc.
Many naturally-occurring and synthetic elements were identified in labs. In some cases, before their existence was hypothesized.
Was there a real chance that such superheavy atoms would not form at all?
It depends on the element.
Until this news, 24 elements on the periodic table (those with atomic numbers 95–118) were considered "synthetic," meaning they do not occur naturally on Earth and to date have only been created artificially (either in a lab or through a man-made process, such as a thermonuclear explosion as in the case of Fermium.) All are unstable, decaying with half-lives ranging from 15.6 million years to a few hundred microseconds.
posted by zarq at 11:21 AM on January 4, 2016
I believe the term stems from discovery science. In this case, the process is identifying chemical elements, verifying they exist, etc.
Many naturally-occurring and synthetic elements were identified in labs. In some cases, before their existence was hypothesized.
Was there a real chance that such superheavy atoms would not form at all?
It depends on the element.
Until this news, 24 elements on the periodic table (those with atomic numbers 95–118) were considered "synthetic," meaning they do not occur naturally on Earth and to date have only been created artificially (either in a lab or through a man-made process, such as a thermonuclear explosion as in the case of Fermium.) All are unstable, decaying with half-lives ranging from 15.6 million years to a few hundred microseconds.
posted by zarq at 11:21 AM on January 4, 2016
It seems odd to say that something has been "discovered" that was made in a lab.
I think that's so only if you choose one very narrow meaning for discovery, a concept which in practice is very broad. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, but Pluto was already there and at the same time only recently have we managed to get a decent look at it; liquid helium was produced and studied in the late 19th or early 20th C., but helium was capable of taking a liquid form all along, and still is, and yet you'll never trip across liquid helium; Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorum in the 90s but literally nothing corporeal was created in the process, and the proof is a daunting tower of abstract mathematics.
Discovery is the process of adding to the canon of human knowledge, not just the act of physically stumbling on something and saying "oh, look at this thing". Creating the lab conditions to establish that a thing we think might be capable of existence is, in fact, capable of existence is certainly a discovery, all else aside. We have discovered the fact rather than just the prediction of its existence.
posted by cortex at 11:22 AM on January 4, 2016 [30 favorites]
I think that's so only if you choose one very narrow meaning for discovery, a concept which in practice is very broad. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, but Pluto was already there and at the same time only recently have we managed to get a decent look at it; liquid helium was produced and studied in the late 19th or early 20th C., but helium was capable of taking a liquid form all along, and still is, and yet you'll never trip across liquid helium; Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorum in the 90s but literally nothing corporeal was created in the process, and the proof is a daunting tower of abstract mathematics.
Discovery is the process of adding to the canon of human knowledge, not just the act of physically stumbling on something and saying "oh, look at this thing". Creating the lab conditions to establish that a thing we think might be capable of existence is, in fact, capable of existence is certainly a discovery, all else aside. We have discovered the fact rather than just the prediction of its existence.
posted by cortex at 11:22 AM on January 4, 2016 [30 favorites]
I held a bunch of tennis-balls together the other day and created an element I called tennisonium. Unfortunately it also has a very short half-life due to gravity and wind.
You may have created a molecule of tennisonium, but you did not create an element since I'm fairly certain you could find some carbon, hydrogen, nitogen, and oxygen, at the least, in those tennis balls. See definition 2.
posted by maryr at 11:22 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
You may have created a molecule of tennisonium, but you did not create an element since I'm fairly certain you could find some carbon, hydrogen, nitogen, and oxygen, at the least, in those tennis balls. See definition 2.
posted by maryr at 11:22 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Relativistic effects" is physics shorthand for "stuff starts moving close to the speed of light."
Think about a nucleus with only one electron, like neutral hydrogen or nearly-completely-ionized anything else. That electron is kept near the nucleus by the attraction between its negative electric charge and the positive electric charge on the nucleus. The electron orbits the nucleus with some typical distance and it takes a certain amount of time to complete an orbit. (And yes, pedants, in the quantum-mechanical picture "orbit" and "orbital period" aren't really the best ways to describe what's happening; it'll be okay.)
As the nucleus gets heavier the attraction between the electron and the nucleus gets stronger. In general this means both that the electron's orbit is closer to the nucleus, and that it orbits more rapidly. For very large positive charge, that orbital speed becomes very fast, and you start to need both quantum mechanics and special relativity to make predictions about how that electron will behave.
Physicists usually think in terms of energy rather than in terms of speed. In that picture "relativistic" means "the kinetic energy is comparable to or larger than the mass / rest energy from E=mc2." (For example the photon has zero mass, so it's always relativistic; this is why light travels at the speed of light.) The electron has a mass / rest energy of 511,000 eV. An electron in a hydrogen atom has a binding energy of 13 eV, and so it's fair to that hydrogen is non-relativistic: the binding energy affects the electron mass starting in the fifth significant figure. But the binding energy for that first, hydrogen-like electron goes like the square of the nuclear charge. For helium the binding energy is quadrupled, to 54 eV. For whatever element has Z=100, the binding energy of that first electron is 130,000 eV: relativistic electron behavior is already a big deal in the first island of stability, around uranium and thorium. Throw in that a neutral superheavy atom has not a single electron but a correlated system of more than 100 electrons and predicting its chemistry becomes a very interesting problem.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:27 AM on January 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
Think about a nucleus with only one electron, like neutral hydrogen or nearly-completely-ionized anything else. That electron is kept near the nucleus by the attraction between its negative electric charge and the positive electric charge on the nucleus. The electron orbits the nucleus with some typical distance and it takes a certain amount of time to complete an orbit. (And yes, pedants, in the quantum-mechanical picture "orbit" and "orbital period" aren't really the best ways to describe what's happening; it'll be okay.)
As the nucleus gets heavier the attraction between the electron and the nucleus gets stronger. In general this means both that the electron's orbit is closer to the nucleus, and that it orbits more rapidly. For very large positive charge, that orbital speed becomes very fast, and you start to need both quantum mechanics and special relativity to make predictions about how that electron will behave.
Physicists usually think in terms of energy rather than in terms of speed. In that picture "relativistic" means "the kinetic energy is comparable to or larger than the mass / rest energy from E=mc2." (For example the photon has zero mass, so it's always relativistic; this is why light travels at the speed of light.) The electron has a mass / rest energy of 511,000 eV. An electron in a hydrogen atom has a binding energy of 13 eV, and so it's fair to that hydrogen is non-relativistic: the binding energy affects the electron mass starting in the fifth significant figure. But the binding energy for that first, hydrogen-like electron goes like the square of the nuclear charge. For helium the binding energy is quadrupled, to 54 eV. For whatever element has Z=100, the binding energy of that first electron is 130,000 eV: relativistic electron behavior is already a big deal in the first island of stability, around uranium and thorium. Throw in that a neutral superheavy atom has not a single electron but a correlated system of more than 100 electrons and predicting its chemistry becomes a very interesting problem.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:27 AM on January 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
Discovery is the process of adding to the canon of human knowledge, not just the act of physically stumbling on something and saying "oh, look at this thing".
It is more accurate to say they discovered a process for synthesizing the element.
I realize that "discover" is probably a term of art when it comes to this kind of thing, but it just doesn't sit right, colloquially.
posted by deanc at 11:28 AM on January 4, 2016
It is more accurate to say they discovered a process for synthesizing the element.
I realize that "discover" is probably a term of art when it comes to this kind of thing, but it just doesn't sit right, colloquially.
posted by deanc at 11:28 AM on January 4, 2016
These were the only ones of which the news had come to Harvard
But since Tom Lehrer wrote this several more have been discarvard.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2016 [18 favorites]
But since Tom Lehrer wrote this several more have been discarvard.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2016 [18 favorites]
Wonder if one of the elements discovered by the Russian team will end up named Putinium. You know, just in case, so as not to have any funding problems in future and such.
posted by acb at 11:37 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 11:37 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
It seems odd to say that something has been "discovered" that was made in a lab. Was there a real chance that such superheavy atoms would not form at all?
I don't really know the answer, but wouldn't all of these have been created somewhere in the universe (inside stars, supernovae, black holes, etc.) if not on earth? IIRC we make them on earth because they're impractical to observe in that supernova.
posted by msalt at 11:39 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't really know the answer, but wouldn't all of these have been created somewhere in the universe (inside stars, supernovae, black holes, etc.) if not on earth? IIRC we make them on earth because they're impractical to observe in that supernova.
posted by msalt at 11:39 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Names by committee, like IUPAC or the IAU are just dreadful and boring. All domains of discovery should follow what seems to be the case in biology and let people who discover stuff name it, which is how you get the fossil snake genus Montypythonoides, the fly species Pieza rhea, and the spider Apopyllus now.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:44 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:44 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
And the whole 'element' thing breaks down at scale anyway. As far as I understand the bestiary of imploded stars, you're working with a variety of states of nucleons where classical atomic structure no longer applies -- and heaven alone knows what sorts of odd things pop into temporary existence during the collapsing phase. The sorts of energies and processes we can play with in our experiments have absolutely nothing on what nature gets to do.
posted by Devonian at 11:48 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Devonian at 11:48 AM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Wonder if one of the elements discovered by the Russian team will end up named Putinium.
Hopefully, the announcement will be accompanied by a photo of a shirtless Putin climbing out of the accelerator holding up a glowing sample of his namesake element.
posted by The Tensor at 11:58 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hopefully, the announcement will be accompanied by a photo of a shirtless Putin climbing out of the accelerator holding up a glowing sample of his namesake element.
posted by The Tensor at 11:58 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Names by committee, like IUPAC or the IAU are just dreadful and boring. All domains of discovery should follow what seems to be the case in biology and let people who discover stuff name it
That is actually how it works. The "unun-" names are just temporary (the latin version of "element 115" or the like I suppose), and the discoverers will be invited to name the new elements as part of the formal process.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:58 AM on January 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
That is actually how it works. The "unun-" names are just temporary (the latin version of "element 115" or the like I suppose), and the discoverers will be invited to name the new elements as part of the formal process.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:58 AM on January 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
"I held a bunch of tennis-balls together the other day and created an element I called tennisonium. [...]
How do they establish the difference between just pushing a bunch of protons and neutrons together in one place temporarily and holding them together for a sec - vs forming an atom? Is there a difference?"
Protons and Neutrons don't just stay together. Protons in particular will instantly repel each other due to their positive charge. What keeps an atomic nucleus together is the strong force as each nucleon's quarks interact with those in the others and it is mediated by an exchange of gluons across the nucleons' boundaries. It's much stronger than the electro-magnetic force driving the protons apart but it's range is tiny. So you have to push the protons and neutrons together close enough for the strong force to kick in. Once you have a bunch of protons and neutrons held together by the strong force you have an atomic nucleus, even though the strong force may only be able to hold that nucleus together for a limited time.
So the dividing line would seem to be whether or not the strong force is holding together your protons and neutrons for any amount of time. If they do, you have made a nucleus. If they don't you have made a loose assembly of nucleons.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:02 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
How do they establish the difference between just pushing a bunch of protons and neutrons together in one place temporarily and holding them together for a sec - vs forming an atom? Is there a difference?"
Protons and Neutrons don't just stay together. Protons in particular will instantly repel each other due to their positive charge. What keeps an atomic nucleus together is the strong force as each nucleon's quarks interact with those in the others and it is mediated by an exchange of gluons across the nucleons' boundaries. It's much stronger than the electro-magnetic force driving the protons apart but it's range is tiny. So you have to push the protons and neutrons together close enough for the strong force to kick in. Once you have a bunch of protons and neutrons held together by the strong force you have an atomic nucleus, even though the strong force may only be able to hold that nucleus together for a limited time.
So the dividing line would seem to be whether or not the strong force is holding together your protons and neutrons for any amount of time. If they do, you have made a nucleus. If they don't you have made a loose assembly of nucleons.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:02 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
While a neutron star (essentially a nucleus held together by gravity) is quite a different creature from a nucleus held together by the nuclear force, most of the heavy element production in supernovae happens in the outer layers at much more modest temperatures, quite accessible with terrestrial (and even small) accelerators. Supernovae aren't hot enough to make quark-gluon plasmas, like RHIC and the LHC do.
My feeling is that the "discovery" here is much more like "discovering" at a particular large number is prime than like "discovering" that there are unique yellow-spotted frogs on a mountaintop in Costa Rica. There is an arrangement of 117 protons and 177 neutrons which decays by emitting alpha particles after a few hundred microseconds, rather than by fissioning into heavy fragments after a few picoseconds. That particular arrangement of nucleons is never going to contribute much to the chemistry of the Earth, but it has certainly occurred elsewhere in the universe and is a neat laboratory for several other phenomena.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:05 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
My feeling is that the "discovery" here is much more like "discovering" at a particular large number is prime than like "discovering" that there are unique yellow-spotted frogs on a mountaintop in Costa Rica. There is an arrangement of 117 protons and 177 neutrons which decays by emitting alpha particles after a few hundred microseconds, rather than by fissioning into heavy fragments after a few picoseconds. That particular arrangement of nucleons is never going to contribute much to the chemistry of the Earth, but it has certainly occurred elsewhere in the universe and is a neat laboratory for several other phenomena.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:05 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
goldenpalacedotcomium
posted by mazola at 12:13 PM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by mazola at 12:13 PM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
That is actually how it works. The "unun-" names are just temporary (the latin version of "element 115" or the like I suppose), and the discoverers will be invited to name the new elements as part of the formal process.
So is it just that physicists have no imagination or joy, or that IUPAC rejects any halfway-decent name like gruntbugglium or illudium?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:47 PM on January 4, 2016
So is it just that physicists have no imagination or joy, or that IUPAC rejects any halfway-decent name like gruntbugglium or illudium?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:47 PM on January 4, 2016
So is it just that physicists have no imagination or joy, or that IUPAC rejects any halfway-decent name like gruntbugglium or illudium?
These are large teams of people working over the span of years and years to discover new elements. One guy at Berkeley isn't going to be able to get "stanfordsucksium" past everyone else.
New species aren't discovered by committee so much, so you can get one or two people naming insects Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi and Aptostichus stephencolberti.
posted by Etrigan at 12:51 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
These are large teams of people working over the span of years and years to discover new elements. One guy at Berkeley isn't going to be able to get "stanfordsucksium" past everyone else.
New species aren't discovered by committee so much, so you can get one or two people naming insects Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi and Aptostichus stephencolberti.
posted by Etrigan at 12:51 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
They could auction off the names for charity and put cokeinum, mcdonaldsum, appleum, and budweiserum on the periodic table.
posted by bukvich at 1:02 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bukvich at 1:02 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
budweiserum
Water is a molecule, not an element.
posted by Etrigan at 1:07 PM on January 4, 2016 [11 favorites]
Water is a molecule, not an element.
posted by Etrigan at 1:07 PM on January 4, 2016 [11 favorites]
But would a company want to be associated with a radioactive element? That's the only kind left to name, as far as we know.
posted by Anne Neville at 1:27 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Anne Neville at 1:27 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
They could auction off the names for charity and put cokeinum, mcdonaldsum, appleum, and budweiserum on the periodic table.
Principal Skinner: "We can buy real periodic tables instead of these promotional ones from Oscar Mayer."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:29 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
Principal Skinner: "We can buy real periodic tables instead of these promotional ones from Oscar Mayer."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:29 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
element 113 - Celestium
element 115 - Lunium
element 117 - Discordium
element 118 - Bonbon
That's the naming problem taken care of for you there.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:45 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
element 115 - Lunium
element 117 - Discordium
element 118 - Bonbon
That's the naming problem taken care of for you there.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:45 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
It seems odd to say that something has been "discovered" that was made in a lab. Was there a real chance that such superheavy atoms would not form at all?
Isn't it possible that eventually we'll find a number of protons too big for the strong force to hold them together as a nucleus for any amount of time at all? (No matter how many extra neutrons you stuff in to help hold them together?)
posted by straight at 1:53 PM on January 4, 2016
Isn't it possible that eventually we'll find a number of protons too big for the strong force to hold them together as a nucleus for any amount of time at all? (No matter how many extra neutrons you stuff in to help hold them together?)
posted by straight at 1:53 PM on January 4, 2016
"The elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118 will get permanent names soon"
Let the fans decide! Have those interested in the outcome donate $20 per each vote they get, with all the money going to fund science education worldwide. A website would keep a running tally of the top choices.
I would recommend Frinkium, Wonderflonium, and Kryptonite... with the most reflective heavy metal to be named Bitemiassium.
posted by markkraft at 2:15 PM on January 4, 2016
Let the fans decide! Have those interested in the outcome donate $20 per each vote they get, with all the money going to fund science education worldwide. A website would keep a running tally of the top choices.
I would recommend Frinkium, Wonderflonium, and Kryptonite... with the most reflective heavy metal to be named Bitemiassium.
posted by markkraft at 2:15 PM on January 4, 2016
There's a formal guideline doc for naming new elements. (emphasis mine)
"Abstract: A procedure is proposed to name new elements. After the discovery of anew element is established by a joint IUPAC–IUPAP Working Group, the discoverers are invited to propose a name and a symbol to the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division. Elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property, or a scientist. After examination and acceptance by the Inorganic Chemistry Division, the proposal follows the accepted IUPAC procedure and is then submitted to the IUPAC Council for approval."
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:10 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Abstract: A procedure is proposed to name new elements. After the discovery of anew element is established by a joint IUPAC–IUPAP Working Group, the discoverers are invited to propose a name and a symbol to the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division. Elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property, or a scientist. After examination and acceptance by the Inorganic Chemistry Division, the proposal follows the accepted IUPAC procedure and is then submitted to the IUPAC Council for approval."
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:10 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wonder if one of the elements discovered by the Russian team will end up named Putinium
I hope it's element 117 for the -ine ending, giving us Putine. Yeah, it's cheesy and he's a dictator who curdles dissent, but it will certainly keep the researchers in gravy.
posted by Panjandrum at 4:34 PM on January 4, 2016
I hope it's element 117 for the -ine ending, giving us Putine. Yeah, it's cheesy and he's a dictator who curdles dissent, but it will certainly keep the researchers in gravy.
posted by Panjandrum at 4:34 PM on January 4, 2016
I'm still impressed an element is named after my town. They even painted a utility box with that theme.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:03 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:03 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Somehow that's just perfect for Livermore.
posted by Standard Orange at 10:09 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Standard Orange at 10:09 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
the discoverers will be invited to name the new elements
The challenge is naming a specific discoverer. These projects are large, international collaborations between competing laboratories. There's been years of fights over naming most of the transactinides. A better man than me would link an article with all the history of the squabbles.
posted by Nelson at 9:22 AM on January 5, 2016
The challenge is naming a specific discoverer. These projects are large, international collaborations between competing laboratories. There's been years of fights over naming most of the transactinides. A better man than me would link an article with all the history of the squabbles.
posted by Nelson at 9:22 AM on January 5, 2016
OK, this is awesome. There's a petition to get this new heavy metal element named Lemmium, after Motörhead's recently late Lemmy Kilmister.
posted by ephemerae at 4:54 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ephemerae at 4:54 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
OK, this is awesome. There's a petition to get this new heavy metal element named Lemmium, after Motörhead's recently late Lemmy Kilmister.
There's also a petition to name the element 'Octarine' from Terry Pratchett's Discworld [The Guardian]
There's also a petition to name the element 'Octarine' from Terry Pratchett's Discworld [The Guardian]
A petition to name one of the new elements added to the periodic table “octarine”, in honour of the late Terry Pratchett’s colour of magic, has garnered more than 12,000 signatures in less than two days.The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the verification of the discoveries of four new chemical elements earlier this week. Currently known as elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, they will be officially named by the teams that discovered them in the months to come, but chemist Dr Kat Day, who blogs at the Chronicle Flask, has put in an early bid for element 117 to be named octarine.posted by Fizz at 5:37 PM on January 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
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