What is the name of the new element 112?

The naming of new elements in the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements used to be a story filled with discord and discord that is not worth the world science world.

This week's science story will address this issue when naming the new element 112 is an issue in those who are interested in the field of super heavy elements at the end of the periodic table.

" Big " or not " big "?

The rare opportunity for those who have invented and had the great honor is the right to name an element in the Periodic Table. After being tested and confirmed the element of element 112, Sigurd Hofmann (the leader of the group of scientists recently assigned by the Association of Basic Chemistry and Applications (IUPAC) to name the element The 112 they invented) and his team had another occasion to mark their history in science.

Although naming an element often causes discord, it is sometimes profound, but this time Sigurd was not so insatiable.

When the American chemist, before, Seaborg heard elemental 106's name being called for by him, he was very surprised and excited, saying that this honor was bigger than the time he won the Nobel Prize. With great achievements in the field of science over the years, many people think that Sigurd's lab will also do the same ' something '.

But Hofmann is not a curious or sentimental scientist. Unlike Oliver Sacks, who approached the periodic table of religious worship, this German professor, Hofmann, did not let his affectionate name in his holy child.

Indeed, when asking questions with the intention of hearing an emotional answer to his life-long career, what does the periodic table mean to him? - Hofmann answers indifferently: For me, the Periodic Table is a way of organizing elements based on proton numbers and related chemical properties. It is no different to ask 'What does your wife mean to you?' The answer is 'She is the person who paid the income tax in my file '.

Maybe Hofmann is not too indifferent to people, things are unintentional, but over the past few decades, the right to name unthinking elements has been a wrong decision and arousing among houses. chemistry made him no longer excited by a ' big ' opportunity, according to many people's thoughts.

History formed " identity " for elements

From 1940 to 1955, naming an element was easy because there was only one laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley that could create a new element. Then, after another famous laboratory at the Dubna Institute, the Soviet Union (old), almost simultaneously with the Berkeley lab, modulated element 102. Both sides declared the right to name the original. this element. And a deep split, a real conflict in the scientific community arises.

Uub 112 will have the official name of a Greek philosopher ???
(Photo: popscie.com)

Confrontations of names of new elements of many other elements, such as 103, 104, 105, etc., last for decades, as a period of intense enmity among nuclear chemists. We call the Transfermium War . For 40 years, the laboratories in the US, Europe and the Soviet Union continued to name new elements without paying attention to each other. That lasted until 1997, when a group of chemists negotiated to agree on the names of elements from 102 to 109. However, this group proved not to have much strength and was easily dragging into lobbying with laboratories looking for elements 110 and higher. Since 1999 almost ended that War Transfermium with the role of IUPAC.

And IUPAC assigned Hofmann and his team the right to name the element 112 (currently known as the ununbium element) which they first obtained in 1996 by bombarding zinc-70. into lead-208 in heavy ion accelerators. Hofmann was very discreet about not disclosing what names his group was planning for the new element, just saying the process was very democratic and the votes of anyone in the lab had the same weight.

And what will " case " 112 be?

Hofmann said a little bit about the wind. He also mentioned that the elements behind plutonium were named after a famous scientist or laboratory name that discovered it first. He only revealed that his laboratory was discussing, could this new element be named after a Greek philosopher?

An idea of ​​112 (Photo: asuku.com)

Hofmann said again and again: ' We are very democratic in this name. We must be careful because those names are permanent. We want the name to be meaningful today and tomorrow. A famous scientist, a famous laboratory, most likely a Greek philosopher '.

That choice may be the end of an atmosphere containing past hatred and land disputes, not the most beautiful when they are scientists. Because there was the naming of the element in connection with a special laboratory or a local, chauvinistic scientific celebrity in the Transfermium War. If one takes the name of an ancient Greek philosopher, like the periodic table of elements, the person who represents that human civilization will belong to everyone.