periodic table group names world of chemistry

Where more than one isotope exists, the value given is the abundance weighted average.Ītoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. This is approximately the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The mass of an atom relative to that of carbon-12. The transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase without passing through a liquid phase.ĭensity is the mass of a substance that would fill 1 cm 3 at room temperature.

The temperature at which the liquid–gas phase change occurs. The temperature at which the solid–liquid phase change occurs. The arrangements of electrons above the last (closed shell) noble gas.

These blocks are named for the characteristic spectra they produce: sharp (s), principal (p), diffuse (d), and fundamental (f). The atomic number of each element increases by one, reading from left to right.Įlements are organised into blocks by the orbital type in which the outer electrons are found. Members of a group typically have similar properties and electron configurations in their outer shell.Ī horizontal row in the periodic table. Whereas choosing an element name referencing a particular lab or indigenous scientist smacks of the chauvinism of the Transfermium Wars, there is something universal in picking the name of an ancient philosopher who, like the element in the periodic table themselves, belongs to everyone.A vertical column in the periodic table. That choice would signal an end to the rancorous, land-grabby atmosphere of the past. We want the name to make sense now and forever–a famous scientist, famous lab, maybe a Greek philosopher.” “We are very careful, because these names last forever. “We are being very democratic about naming,” Hofmann said. Although every element after plutonium has been named after a famous scientist or the laboratory that first discovered the element, Hofmann mentioned that his lab was considering naming the element after a Greek philosopher. Hofmann was cagey about what the group might name the new element, noting that the process was very democratic and everyone in the lab would get an equal vote. In 1999, a new committee ended the Transfermium Wars with a structure backed by the world community of chemists and physicists.Īnd it is that group that bestowed upon Hofmann and his team the chance to name element 112 (also known by its placeholder name, ununbium) which his team first created in 1996 by smashing together zinc-70 and lead-208 nuclei in a heavy ion accelerator. However, that group proved weak and easily manipulated by the lobbying of labs looking name elements 110 and higher. It wasn’t until 1997 that a group of chemists negotiated consensus names for elements 102-109. For 40 years, labs across the US, Europe, and the Soviet Union all continued to name elements without regard for one another. And an unlikely conflict in the scientific community was born.Ĭompeting claims to element names continued for decades, in a period of discord known to nuclear chemists as the Transfermium Wars. Both sides claimed the right to name the element. Then in 1956, a Soviet lab produced element 102 around the same time as the Berkeley lab. Maybe Hofmann isn’t so much aloof as cynical, with decades of flawed, ad-hoc naming convention and inter-chemist feuding having drained the ecstasy from such an opportunity.įrom 1940 to 1955, naming was easy, as a single lab at the University of California, Berkeley, produced every new element. In fact, when asked what the periodic table meant to him, Hofmann replied, “the periodic table means a way to organize elements by proton number and related chemical properties.” That’s like answering, “What does your wife mean to you?” with “she means I get to file a joint tax return.” Unlike Oliver Sacks, who approached the periodic table with almost religious awe, Hofmann’s Teutonic, matter-of-fact attitude belies no emotional stand on his opportunity to christen the next element.

With stakes that important, you’d think emotions in Hofmann’s lab would run equally high.īut Hofmann is not the most reflective or sentimental scientist. Many have sweated it, a great deal: When chemist Glenn Seaborg heard element 106 had been named after him, he called it a greater honor than his Nobel Prize win. And despite element naming’s bitterly contentious history ( very bitter, actually), Sigurd isn’t sweating it much. After stabilizing and observing the latest addition to chemistry’s constitution, element number 112, Sigurd Hofmann and his team will have the chance to make their mark. It’s one of the most hallowed clubs in all of science–the lucky few who have discovered and named an element on the periodic table.

Periodic table group names world of chemistry