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Chemical Element 110 To Be Named 291

Posted by simoniker from the soda-company-to-sponsor-pepsium dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to Nature Magazine, chemists will vote in Ottawa, Canada this week, and are expected to approve the chemical element 110's informal moniker, 'darmstadtium', and give it the chemical symbol Ds. The title honors the Laboratory for Heavy Ion Research (called GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, where the substance was first made. It seems that 'disputes over claimed sightings of new elements have [previously] led to acrimonious and nationalistic battles over naming', but not in this case."
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Chemical Element 110 To Be Named More

Chemical Element 110 To Be Named

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  • Darmstadtium? Ewwww (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:43AM (#6703818)
    Darm, if I'm not mistaken, means 'intestine'. Stadt means city. So this element is Intestine-city-um.

  • Natural vs ??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:43AM (#6703820) Homepage
    I never studied much chemistry, but I hope someone can answer a couple questions:

    According to the article, the "natural" elemements "run out" at 92.

    1) What does this mean exactly?
    2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?
    3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?
    4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {nahsei}> on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:49AM (#6703837) Homepage Journal
      Natural vs. Not-naturally occuring.

      It's not quite correct, but basically, they're saying that these other things don't exist unless we try really hard to make them exist in a laboratory.

      For instance, gold, mercury, hydrogen: these are all examples of elements that exist in nature (as well as Lithium, Helium, etc, down the line).

      Yes, they've existed in very small quantities (sometimes not at all, there have been disputes over this), and under very controlled conditions.

      No, of course it's not inconcievable. But remember, elements are created by making a stable (or not so stable) configuration of protons in a little ball. This leaves one to question what is natural: are nuclear explosions and the weapons of the future a "natural" setting?

      • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:5, Informative)

        by hughk ( 248126 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:07AM (#6703885) Journal
        It's not quite correct, but basically, they're saying that these other things don't exist unless we try really hard to make them exist in a laboratory.
        All existing naturally ocurring heavy elements are the result of ancient supernovae. It is quite possible that these new elements already exist around other supernovae, which whilst catastropic, are definitely natural. It is just that none was around when the earth coalesced.

        • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Gorny ( 622040 )
          All existing naturally ocurring heavy elements are the result of ancient supernovae. It is quite possible that these new elements already exist around other supernovae, which whilst catastropic, are definitely natural. It is just that none was around when the earth coalesced.

          Even if they did, they would be so unstable (with a half time to be measured in nanoseconds) that they would fall apart immediately. That's (as being told me by my school Science teacher) also the distinction between natural and nonn

        • And hence... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @04:03AM (#6704050) Homepage
          ...they should really name this element "damnhardtomakeium".

        • Limits on "natural" (Score:3, Interesting)

          by siskbc ( 598067 )
          All existing naturally ocurring heavy elements are the result of ancient supernovae. It is quite possible that these new elements already exist around other supernovae, which whilst catastropic, are definitely natural. It is just that none was around when the earth coalesced.

          Good point - how about, 92 is the heaviest element occurring naturally in a 4.5B-year-old planet?

          Of course, given that some of these really heavy ones have half-lives many times less than a second (this one is 110 microseconds), it s

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Gherald ( 682277 )
      1) What does this mean exactly?

      They can only be created in a lab.

      2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?

      There are none left to discover.

      3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?

      Such conditions do not exist in nature.

      4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?

      Yes
      • Such conditions do not exist in nature

        Only if you don't count stars as nature.

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:5, Informative)

      by waynemcdougall ( 631415 ) <slashdot@codeworks.gen.nz> on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:02AM (#6703877) Homepage
      According to the article, the "natural" elemements "run out" at 92

      1) What does this mean exactly?

      It means that the first 92 elements can be found naturally occurring, but that after 92 (the trans-uranic elements) have to be produced in a laboratory or under artifical conditions if you want useful amounts.

      2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?

      If by discover, you mean create then yes. Since an element is definied by the number of (integer >0) protons, any new elements created must have an atomic number >92.

      3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?

      Not inconceivable. It has been verified that minutes amounts of trans-uranic elements have been found in nature. But given that these lements have a very short life time (before they decay into other elements), you'd have to be around immediately after their formation to detect them in nature. Since their creation requires high amounts of energy, super nova, intense gamma radiation near black holes, etc, are the sort of environments where you might find naturally ocurring trans-uranic elements (remembering too that you basically need to smash into heavy elements to get the trans-uranic ones, the very heavy ones need to be present to). Such environments are are rare and not conducive to observation. Given that the elements in the universe are hydrogen, helium and minor traces short-lived trans-uranic are not going to be found in nature in any partical sense.

      4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?

      Yes. There are some theories that there would be an island of stability around element 120+. Scientists are working to create a stable trans-uranic element, and I for one welcome our trans-uranic overlords and would like to remind them that being primarily made of stable isotopes I can be useful in rounding up other carbon based elemental life forms to slave in their radioactive piles.

      • Not only are you the most complete reply to the parent post, you also manage to get in a Kent Brockman quote. #3 is covering what everyone else missed.

        Mod Parent Up!

      • Kudos on the awesome response! (Very informative to myself and others too I'm sure.)

        Unfortunately, (even though I have taken a couple chemistry classes and a physics class), I must have missed the part where the professor explained WHY we have unstable elements. We have so many stable elements that I've always wondered why everything on the table >92 is unstable?

        Anyway, I figure I must have slept through the important lecture or something. I passed the class(es) and that's all I cared at the time

        • Re:Great Post! (Score:4, Funny)

          by B3ryllium ( 571199 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @04:33AM (#6704118) Homepage
          Try taking 92 shots of vodka and being stable after that.

        • Re:Great Post! (Score:5, Informative)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @05:40AM (#6704286)
          I must have missed the part where the professor explained WHY we have unstable elements. We have so many stable elements that I've always wondered why everything on the table >92 is unstable?

          I remember a little more: nuclei are made of protons (positively charged) and neutrons (no charge), usually in roughly equal numbers (except Hydrogen, which is usually just a proton). The protons repel each other. The nucleus is held together by a very powerful, but very short range nuclear force between both protons and neutrons. As the nucleus gets bigger, the electric repulsion starts to overcome the nuclear force, and the nucleus becomes more and more likely to decay. But I don't remember why you can't just have a pile of neutrons...

          Actually #92, Uranium, is unstable, but U238 has a half-life of 4.4 billion years, which is why it's not that hard to find (about half of it has decayed since the creation of the earth). I think all elements above 83 (Bismuth) are unstable. The short-lived ones are found in nature as the result of decay of Uranium or the other longer-lived ones. See this table of isotopes [lbl.gov].

          • Re:Great Post! (Score:2, Informative)

            by NichG ( 62224 )
            You can't just have a big pile of neutrons because neutrons convert to protons and electrons with a halflife of about 10 minutes if not bound up with sufficient protons. So if you started with 200 neutrons, after awhile you'd end up with some mix of protons and neutrons forming elements.

            On the other hand, in appropriate conditions (very large pressures) you can suppress that conversion and you get a very big pile of neutrons - a neutron star. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the ability to generate su
          • A neutron star is a ball of neutrons. A large pile of neutrons may be harder to produce, since the material is so dense it would tend to collapse.

        • Re:Great Post! (Score:5, Informative)

          by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @06:21AM (#6704390)
          We have so many stable elements that I've always wondered why everything on the table >92 is unstable?

          Actually everything past bismuth 209 is unstable. 92 is merely the last element to have any isotopes that are stable on a geological timescale (U238 half-life around 4.5 * 10^9 years).

          As for why, simply put their nuclei are very loosely held together. Neutrons hold nuclei together with a force known as binding energy (think of it as atomic glue).

          For very light elements, (up to around calcium (element 20) stability is achieved by more or less associating one neutron with every proton. However, for heavier elements, an excess of neutrons is needed to hold the nucleus together - the excess growing as elements get heavier.

          Simply put (and I hope any physicists will forgive me for this - they have equations and everything!) The electrostatic repulsion between the protons in the nucleus operates over a larger distance than the stronger, binding force of the neutrons. As the nucleus grows, the protons in the nucleus experience a weakening binding force. Beyond a certain point (Bismuth 209) this binding force is insufficient to hold the nucleus together forever - the nucleus will decay.

          Best wishes,
          Mike.

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Xrikcus ( 207545 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:02AM (#6703878)
      The elements above 92 that have been "discovered" in that they could be predicted, but had never been shown to be possible to create before. It is feasible that the high numbered elements could be created naturally, for example in a supernova, however the real problem is that atoms of that size are fundamentally unstable, so have very short half-lives and therefore collapse into smaller atoms very quickly.

      It also depends on the isotope of the element, that is changes the ratio of neutrons to protons (the proton count being the atomic number). For example, the half-life of meitnerium (element 109) is most stable as meitnerium-268, ie 109 protons, 159 neutrons, has a half life of 0.07 seconds. So any amount of it produced will not last long. These results are only theoretical, the isotope produced was meitnerium-266, which has a half-life of 3.8 milliseconds.

      So yes, they could occur naturally, but not for long enough for anyone to notice.

      It's early, that may not have made sense...

    • One more thing - technetium (Score:5, Informative)

      by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:04AM (#6703882) Homepage
      Just one more answer I'd like to add to your questions (because so many have been submitted). The natural elements stop occuring after atomic number 92, yes. But it's also worth point out that for all intents and purposes, technetium (element #43) does not exist in nature either.

      After decades of searching, extremely small quantites were obtained from pitchblend, but that's negligible.

      Long story short (long answer being availabe from google cache here [216.239.39.104]) is that pairing energy makes the atom extremely unstable and causes it to break -a(C)Y quickly.
    • I've just taken chemistry for the past 2 years, so I should easily know these; but then again, we didn't concentrate on nuclear chemistry, 'cause "It Wasn't On The AP Exam(TM)." Stupid stoichiometry...

      #4 is sorta correct. Something like plutonium-239 has a half-life of 2.411x10^4 years, but lawrencium-257 has one of 0.65 seconds.

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TuataraShoes ( 600303 )
      3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature? If you are brave enough to go to a very extreme natural environment (like the centre of a black hole), you may find that matter exists in a quite different form. The periodic table has a sequence, so we know there are no gaps up to the 92nd element we have found naturally and the 110th someone says they have produced. But there may be places in the universe where conditions are sufficiently different

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @05:48AM (#6704305)
      1) What does this mean exactly?

      Elements are distinguished from one another by the number of protons in their nuclei. Hydrogen has 1, helium 2 and so on. The heaviest naturally occuring element found on Earth is number 92 - uranium.

      The limiting factor on elements heavier than 92 is that they are unstable. In fact all of the heavier elements are unstable - they are radioactive, parts of their nuclei keep falling off - they turn into new, lighter elements. So uranium decays step by step, down the periodic table eventually forming lead.

      The reason for nuclear decay is a concept known as binding energy - the energy needed to hold a nucleus together. Very simply, the nucleus consists of postively charged protons - each repelling the other. If this repulsion was not counteracted the nucleus would disintegrate. However, the nucleus also contains neutrons - which act very much like glue - sticking protons together. If you measure the binding energy of all the elements you will notice that it rises rapidly from hydrogen, peaking around iron (element 26) and then gradually diminishing towards uranium.

      By the time you reach uranium, the binding energy is barely able to hold the nucleus together, beyond uranium, the nuclei of the elements become extremely unstable - they decay - rapidly.

      2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?

      Below 92? No. Each element must have at least one proton (in which case it is called hydrogen), we have found each and every element between 1 and 92. You can't have half a proton, so there are just 92 elements in Nature (see proviso below). Some models of atomic nuclei suggest that there are elements heavier than 92 which are comparatively stable - they would be radioactive and decay, but might have considerable half-lives. The theoretical 'island of stability' lies out between elements 118 and 130 (?) - but as yet remains undiscovered.

      3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?

      Yes, supernovae are capable of building up super-heavy elements. However, the short half-lives of the elements mean that they have long since decayed in the rocks around us. The synthetic elements neptunium (93) and plutonium (94) are also generated in minute quantities in naturally occuring uranium.

      4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?

      Pretty much, although some of the synthetic elements were first discovered in the residue of nuclear weapons tests.

      Hope that helps,
      Mike.

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gurisees ( 315528 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @05:59AM (#6704339)
      First of all, there are not "unnatural" elements. They are all natural, because they can all be found in the nature, given the proper conditions. I guess you should better talk about stable and unstable elements, and even then you should specify the conditions under which the element is stable or not.

      Stable elements are that way because the energy required to bind together the protons and neutrons is smaller than the energy gain that comes from binding them, so there is an "energy wall" that has to be surpassed in order to break the atom.

      Unstable elements don't have such a barrier, because the energy required to keep them together is too high. This means that if you leave them alone they will decay into a nuclei of another element by losing one or more nucleons (neutron or proton), and will keep decaying until the new atom is stable.

      This doesn't mean that these elements cannot be found in nature, it only means that you have to be very lucky, or know very well where you have to search them, or wait a long long time to see one of these atoms form (and dissapear) without human help.

      Someone has said here that it is impossible to find more "natural" (stable) elements. That seems a very risky thing to say, since most of those affirmations (in the line of "we know it all 'bout this, we won't find anything more here") have proven false in the past. I'd better say that we cannot know for sure, but some think it is possible to find stable configurations at higher atomic numbers (ammount of protons and neutrons).

      I hope this makes some sense...

    • I don't think you actually received an answer for why 'natural' elements 'stop' at 92.

      I'm not a chemist (or any form of scientist, really) but I believe it refers to how many elements have 'naturally' been found on Earth. Wikipedia sums it up nicely at Transuranic Elements [wikipedia.org]: "All of the elements with higher atomic numbers, however, have had to be produced artificially. They are all radioactive, with a half-life much shorter than the age of the Earth, so any atoms of these elements, if they ever were present

    • Re:Natural vs ??? (Score:3, Informative)

      by RevMike ( 632002 )
      A lot of people have beat this to death, but I'd like to add my own spin...

      According to the article, the "natural" elemements "run out" at 92.

      1) What does this mean exactly?

      With a few exceptions, all the elements with 92 protons or less have been observed in nature. They are proven to exist without human intervention. The elements with 93 or more protons have only been observed to exist as the result or side effect of some experiment we did. We've proven that they can exist, but we can't prove t

  • What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fredistheking ( 464407 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:48AM (#6703833)
    Ununnilium isn't good enough for them? Sir Ununnil must be rolling over in his grave.

    --

  • WAIT! It's already been done!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:51AM (#6703844)
    Element: WOMAN
    Symbol: Wo
    Atomic Weight: 120 +/-

    Physical Properties: Generally round in form. Boils at nothing and may freeze anytime. Melts whenever treated properly. Very bitter if not used well.

    Chemical Properties: Very active. Possesses strong affinity to gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able to absorb great amount of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed beside a better specimen. Ages rapidly.

    Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for disintegration of wealth. Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known.

    Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.
  • Didn't they realize Darmstadtium is an anagram of "Mama Rudd's Tit"?

    What the hell were they thinking?

  • Named Tomorrow? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Joe Jordan ( 453607 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:55AM (#6703855) Journal
    It's already on the webelements.com [webelements.com] page, with some interesting info on the chemical makeup.
  • I saw that Webelements.com [webelements.com] already updated their website.

    I wonder how small it's decay time is. I know the elements before it have halflives of several nano- to picoseconds. It'll be gone before you can say "fast". These scientist better not have a cold: Press the button to start experiment. HATSJOO!!!". Oh darned, missed it.

    Ununnillium gone, Darmstadtium in. Mendelev would be proud.

  • New element 111 discovered!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by vevva ( 693964 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @02:56AM (#6703862)
    Scientists have announced within days of the discovery of element 110, the new element 111 provisionally named "SLASHDOTIUM". The discovery opens the door to a new group of elements that should fall in quick succession. The team are working hard on geekium, freakium and phrackium. However elements past his group look more difficult to identify. "We had high hopes we could pin down muckrosoftium as element 115 - but the damn thing just wasn't stable".

  • Don't /. Nature (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:00AM (#6703873)
    Chemical element 110, which was discovered in 1994, will finally get a name tomorrow.

    A committee will vote at this weekend's General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in Ottawa, Canada. It is expected to approve the element's informal moniker, 'darmstadtium', and give it the chemical symbol Ds. The title honours the Laboratory for Heavy Ion Research (called GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, where the substance was first made.

    The natural elements run out at number 92, uranium. Several more have been made artificially since 1939, when researchers at the University of California at Berkeley bombarded uranium with a beam of neutrons to create element 93, which they called neptunium.

    Firing subatomic particles at heavy atoms became the preferred method of making new elements. The basic aim is to add more protons to the atomic nuclei - an element is defined by the number of protons its atoms contain. Some new elements were also detected in the fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s.

    Element-making soon became a race. In the 1960s and 1970s the two main players were a Soviet group at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and a team spanning the University of California and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The discoverers of a new element generally win the right to name it, although the new name still has to receive IUPAC approval.

    The natural elements run out around
    number 92

    But disputes over claimed sightings of new elements have led to acrimonious and nationalistic battles over naming. These elements decay quickly, and are often made only a few atoms at a time - so it can be hard to gather convincing evidence.

    In 1987 IUPAC was forced to assess priority claims over all the new elements from 104 to 107. Then in 1993 a new controversy erupted when the Berkeley team wanted to name element 106 after nuclear-chemistry pioneer Glenn Seaborg. IUPAC insisted at first that 'seaborgium' broke the rules, because Seaborg was still alive at that time. It relented only after the American Chemical Society threatened rebellion.

    No one disputes GSI's claim to element 110. There was, however, some relief when the German results, produced by fusing lead and nickel nuclei, were confirmed last June at Berkeley using the same process1. Element-hunters have been more cautious since a Berkeley team was forced to retract unreproducible data published in support of a reported 1999 creation of element 118.

  • Element 101? (Score:5, Funny)

    by patch-rustem ( 641321 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:03AM (#6703879) Homepage Journal
    Okay,I know the natural elements and now we have this new one, so its:

    001 Earth

    010 Wind

    011 Fire

    100 Water

    101 ?

    110 Darmstadtium

    Please can anyone fill in the gap. What's the element 101?

    • Surely its Dalmatianum.

    • Re:Element 101? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TuataraShoes ( 600303 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:27AM (#6703949)
      Ether was added to the list after Earth, Wind, Water and Fire. No joke - this is old Greek stuff. Someone said ether had circular properties, explaining the moon and cycles in nature...
    • Element 101: ??? is none other than: PROFIT!
    • Why "heart", of course.

    • Re:Element 101? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2@earthsh ... minus herbivore> on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:57AM (#6704040)
      Actually, I would have thought it would be more like this. Note: "Earth", "Water", "Air" and "Fire" reprsent the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas and energy.
      • 001 - air - gases - there is only one atmosphere.
      • 010 - water - liquids - water now known to contain two elements in the ratio 2:1.
      • 011 - fire - energy - fire needs fuel, heat and oxygen.
      • 100 - earth - solids - earth was once thought to have four corners.
      Actually this would be neater if Earth was 000, then we can just use two digits - AJS.

      Air and Fire are associated with masculine, spiritual and software. They have odd numbers which are also associated with these properties. Earth and Water are associated with feminine, material and hardware. They have even numbers which are also associated with these properties. I'm not going to comment on the obvious gender symbolism of the one and the zero at LSB in odd numbers .....

      Note to cynical moderators: Please don't mod me down -1, Beardy-Weirdy. I thought this stuff up for the express purpose of assisting New Agers to rectify their money/sense discrepancies!

    • Re:Element 101? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ashtead ( 654610 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @04:14AM (#6704083) Journal
      nah ... based on the primitive element we would get:

      0000 The Void
      0001 Earth
      0010 Wind
      0011 Sandblasting
      0100 Fire
      0101 Bricks
      0110 Dragon-breath
      0111 A durable disco group
      1000 Water
      1001 Mud
      1010 Carbonated soft drinks
      1011 Bad weather
      1100 Tequila
      1101 Whisky on the rocks
      1110 Champagne
      1111 Life, the universe and everything less 27

      • ooo Orgasmium
      • 001 Earth
      • 010 Wind
      • 011 Fire
      • 100 Water
      • 101 Dalmation
      • 110 Darmstadtium
      • 111 PoliceFireAmbulancium

      That's your complete set. Thank you. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your physisicts.


      • 101 Lee-loo! The fifth element!

    • 101 ?

      That's easy.

      Dalmatianium.


    • 001 Earth
      010 Wind
      011 Fire
      100 Water

      Heart!

      By your powers combined... I am Captain Planet!
  • As the elements 111 and 112 are also discovered by GSI, and the whole hierarchy Europium (element 63), Germanium (32), Hassium (108) and now Darmstadtium (110) is taken, I am really curious how they will name these two.

    Maybe, they'll take Wixhausenium (GSI is located in a district of Darmstadt called Wixhausen), but that wouldn't be too good as the german word Wichsen means "jerk off...", and the words Wix... and Wichs... are spoken exactly the same. :-)

  • Damnstraightium

  • Pretty periodic table site (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:54AM (#6704031) Journal
    The Wooden Periodic Table [theodoregray.com]

    Perhaps some of you knew this one already, but it's one of the most useful ones I've found so far and I really like those huge and high quality pictures they have for most elements that you can take meaningful pictures of. :-)

  • And there I was... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @03:58AM (#6704041)
    ...thinking that it was already called Ununnilium [webelements.com].

    • Re:And there I was... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Novus ( 182265 )

      ...thinking that it was already called Ununnilium.

      ... which is pseudo-Latin for "one-one-zero-ium". It's just a temporary name consisting of the element's number and the ending "ium" to make it sound scientific.

      • It's not a tempory name. That's it's offical IUPAC name. The other, more informal names, are the offical-yet-unoffical names.

        The methodical naming scheme was broguht in to remove the hissy fits and cat fights that were going on over who made the stuff first (traditionally, the first discoverer got to name the thing). So, IUPAC decided to tell them all to sod off, and went with the Un...ium naming scheme.

        It also simplyfies the memoriseing all the name, although that's a minor point.

        You'll find that, ou

        • Re:And there I was... (Score:3, Informative)

          by Novus ( 182265 )

          It's not a tempory name. That's it's offical IUPAC name.

          No and yes. According to the article:

          A committee will vote at this weekend's General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in Ottawa, Canada. It is expected to approve the element's informal moniker, 'darmstadtium', and give it the chemical symbol Ds.

          According to IUPAC's naming rules for elements 101 and up [qmw.ac.uk]:

          The systematic names and symbols for elements of atomic numbers greater than 103 are the only approve

        • You mean like Ferrum, Plumbum, Zincum etc. as opposed to Helium, Oxygenium, Sulfurium?

    • Re:And there I was... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Novus ( 182265 )
      This page [vanderkrogt.net] about ununnilium also explains how the temporary (or IUPAC systematic) name is generated from the number.

  • Oh no... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by maxmg ( 555112 )
    Having studied in Darmstadt, let me tell you it's not a place you'll wnat to name an element after.
    Unless, that is, it is a really geeky element that drinks lots of beer and never meets any women.
    You see, Darmstadt's main claim to fame is its technical university which sadly results in a geek/women ratio of about 250...

  • Off topic but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@ColinGregor y P a l mer.net> on Friday August 15, 2003 @04:22AM (#6704099) Homepage
    I know this is offtopic but, this is the most beautiful periodic table. [chemsoc.org]

  • So Chemistry naming is a Science of spin too? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ratfynk ( 456467 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @04:39AM (#6704139) Journal
    "Chemically, darmstadtium is in the same Group as nickel, palladium, and platinum (Group 10). Unlike these lighter atoms, darmstadtium decays after a small fraction of a thousandth of a second into lighter elements by emitting a-particles which are the nuclei of helium atoms." So that is where microsoft got the idea! Here is a brief description of the real palladium. Since it is used in industry for membrane gas extraction and isolation tech, then I guess having software that can control the user is the a valid concept. I see why they are using the code name Longhorn now someone in the spin department realised that palladium is an element that is actually used to control things!
    Hopefully Longhorn or MS "Palladium" will turn out
    to be more like 'darmstadtium' which is really vapour ware and only lasts a few thousandths of a before self distructing!
    Here is the real scoop on Palladium
    "Standard state: solid at 298 K
    Colour: silvery white metallic
    Classification: Metallic
    Availability: palladium is available in many forms including wire, foil, "evaporation slugs", granule, powder, rod, shot, sheet, and sponge. Small and large samples of palladium foil, sheet, and wire can be purchased from Advent Research Materialsvia their web catalogue.
    Ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum together make up a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGM). Compound of the platinum group metals and their Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are available online through the Alfa Aesar catalogue.
    Palladium is a steel-white metal, does not tarnish in air, and is the least dense and lowest melting of the platinum group metals. When annealed, it is soft and ductile. Cold working increases its strength and hardness. It is used in some watch springs.

    At room temperatures the metal has the unusual property of absorbing up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen. Hydrogen readily diffuses through heated palladium and this provides a means of purifying the gas.

    Isolation
    Here is a brief summary of the isolation of palladium.
    It would not normally be necessary to make a sample of palladium in the laboratory as the metal is available commercially. The industrial extraction of palladium is complex as the metal occurs in ores mixed with other metals such as platinum. Sometimes extraction of the precious metals such as platinum and palladium is the main focus of a partiular industrial operation while in other cases it is a byproduct. The extraction is complex and only worthwhile since palladium is the basis of important catalysts in industry.

    Preliminary treatment of the ore or base metal byproduct with aqua regia (a mixture of hydrochloric acid, HCl, and nitric acid, HNO3) gives a solution containing complexes of gold and platinum as well as H2PdCl4. The gold is removed from this solution as a precipitate by treatment with iron chloride (FeCl2). The platinum is precipitated out as (NH4)2PtCl6 on treatment with NH4Cl, leaving H2PdCl4 in solution. The palladium is precipitated out by treatment with ammonium hydroxide, NH4OH, and HCl as the complex PdCl2(NH3)2. This yields palladium metal by burning."
  • Element 110: Marklarium
    Element 111: Marklarium ...

  • Caltransium discovered--heaviest known element (Score:5, Funny)

    by FattMattP ( 86246 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:26AM (#6704901) Homepage
    BERKELEY, CA (AP): The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by physicists at U.C. Berkeley. The element, tentatively called Caltransium, has no protons or electrons, and thus has an atomic weight of zero (0). However, it does have 1 neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 212. These 212 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of neutron-like particles called morons.

    Since it has no electrons, Caltransium is inert; however, it can be detected chemically, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. According to the Berkeley discoverers, a minute amount of Caltransium caused one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally have occurred in less than one second.

    Caltransium has a normal half-life of approximately three years at which time it does not actually decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice-neutrons exchange places. Some tests have shown that the atomic number actually increases after each reorganization, although it is not yet clear where the extra morons may originate. Research at other laboratories indicate that Caltransium is known to be highly toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Caltransium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising. Due to lack of funding, U.C. Berkeley has no plans for further evaluation.

    Shamelessly reposted from a joke someone sent me years ago. For people that don't live in California, CalTrans is the California transportation authority.

  • 110 prefers to be called (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anne_Nonymous ( 313852 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:51AM (#6705025) Homepage Journal
    The Element Formerly Known As Ununnilium.

  • Cowboynealadium (Score:2, Funny)

    by xv4n ( 639231 )
    What surprises me the most is that nobody has proposed the name to be Cowboynealadium yet.
  • I've been seaching the periodic table for quite a while, and have yet to see Adamantium...

    No, I'm not a "goody two-shoes"!

    • Re:New Elementium (Score:3, Interesting)

      by swordgeek ( 112599 )
      That's partly because adamantane is already a chemical compound. They tend NOT to like to cross those lines back and forth.

      Besides, why should it be an element--because it came from a comic?

  • Already named (Score:2, Informative)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 )
    Isn't that name already the official name for element 110? According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the name was officially accepted by the IUPAC in May 2003 already.

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