Copernicium Our Newest Element

[lost thought]

I would like to congratulate Nic Copernicus on this outstanding achievement which will be added to his list of contributions to science.
Tonight I will drink a toast to his memory, well any excuse for a drink will do.

Welcome "Copernicium," Our Newest Element
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/07/14/welcome-copernicium-our-newest-element/#more-34800
The newest element on the periodic table will likely be named in honour of scientist and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Element 112 will be named Copernicum, with the element symbol "Cp."
"We would like to honour an outstanding scientist, who changed our view of the world", says Sigurd Hofmann, head of the team who discovered the element.

Element 112 is the heaviest element in the periodic table, 277 times heavier than hydrogen. With that distinction, several interesting suggestions for a name have recently been floating around the blogosphere (Fat Bottomum was my favourite; another was naming it to honour Carl Sagan). But the scientists said they wanted to honour the scientist who paved the way for our view of the modern world by discovering that the Earth orbits the Sun. Our solar system is a model for other physical systems, such as the structure of an atom, where electrons orbit the atomic nucleus. Exactly 112 electrons circle the atomic nucleus in an atom of copernicium.

[Trinoc]

I don't understand this. I'm sure elements up to 118 have been created (with one gap, I think).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununoctium

[lost thought]

Could be unconfirmed as copernicium was discovered 13 years ago and has just now been officially named.
It could have been worse it could have been Fat Bottomum,
Science humour just like kids.

[Mulder]

It seems a shame to name 'rubbish' elements after famous scientists. By 'rubbish', I mean elements so unstable that they have half lives of seconds or less. Such elements are never likely to have any practical significance. I think they should just call them ununhexium or whatever.

They should wait until the reach the fabled 'island of stability' to give proper names to the super-heavy stable elements which could be highly useful.

[Trinoc]

IThey should wait until the reach the fabled 'island of stability' to give proper names to the super-heavy stable elements which could be highly useful.

The ones expected to have half lives of seconds rather than milliseconds or microseconds, you mean?

(If the heavier elements were genuinely stable then we would have found them. Supernovas spit out every possible combination of protons and neutrons, so anything stable would stick around.)

[Mulder]

The ones expected to have half lives of seconds rather than milliseconds or microseconds, you mean?

It's not really possible to predict accurately what half lives would be on the island. Even if they are short-lived, they would still be remarkable compared to the 'rubbish' elements. Naming a 'rubbish' element after a great scientist like Copernicus is a waste.

(If the heavier elements were genuinely stable then we would have found them. Supernovas spit out every possible combination of protons and neutrons, so anything stable would stick around.)

Given the extreme difficulty in producing such elements, I'm not convinced they would be produced in supernovae (see here). If they are finally produced here on Earth, it may well be for the first time.

[Trinoc]

It's not really possible to predict accurately what half lives would be on the island. Even if they are short-lived, they would still be remarkable compared to the 'rubbish' elements. Naming a 'rubbish' element after a great scientist like Copernicus is a waste.

Given the extreme difficulty in producing such elements, I'm not convinced they would be produced in supernovae (see here). If they are finally produced here on Earth, it may well be for the first time.

Interesting. However, your link says that the half-lives have been predicted with reasonable confidence.

I notice (see Wiki link below) that we have already passed one predicted island at 114, and that this has a half-life which is actually about a tenth of that of copernicium (112) -- 2.6 seconds rather than 29 (OK, an eleventh).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability

(OK, so we haven't made Uuq-298, but the fact that all of the isotopes observed so far have at least 10 fewer neutrons should be telling us something.)

Of course these "islands" are extremely interesting, but I think it's unlikely they will stick around long enough to put them in a jar and keep the on a shelf (radiation hazard aside), never mind have an everyday practical application (like, say, the americium in a smoke detector).

Of course, I would be delighted to be proved wrong here!

Back to the original point, I don't really think that giving someone's name to a short-lived element is in any way an insult to their memory. I'd be very happy to have the shortest-lived element ever discovered named trinocium ...

[Mulder]

Back to the original point, I don't really think that giving someone's name to a short-lived element is in any way an insult to their memory. I'd be very happy to have the shortest-lived element ever discovered named trinocium ...

Not an insult but there are many lesser known scientists they could have used for these elements. It would a perfect opportunity to honour them, if you want to spin it that way.

[Trinoc]

Not an insult but there are many lesser known scientists they could have used for these elements. It would a perfect opportunity to honour them, if you want to spin it that way.

Well, yes, but the idea of making a sort of league table of which dead scientists were more or less important (controversial in itself) and then deciding on a name high or low in the list depending on half-life, seems very bizarre to me. What if we didn't find enough new elements for all of the list, and Copernicus got omitted altogether because none of the ones discovered were deemed to have a long enough half-life to justify naming it after him?

[Mulder]

Well, yes, but the idea of making a sort of league table of which dead scientists were more or less important (controversial in itself) and then deciding on a name high or low in the list depending on half-life, seems very bizarre to me. What if we didn't find enough new elements for all of the list, and Copernicus got omitted altogether because none of the ones discovered were deemed to have a long enough half-life to justify naming it after him?

I never proposed a league table nor ranking by half life. I proposed leaving the big names for a suitably important element, should one be discovered. It would better to name 114 or 118 Copernicium as both have isotope with 184 neutrons that should be more stable. The problem experimentally is getting enough neutrons to stick to get full shells. A theoretical study concluded some superheavies could be stable for hundreds or thousands of years although they might decay more quickly through alpha radiation due to quantum tunnelling because of their large physical size!

[Trinoc]

I never proposed a league table nor ranking by half life. I proposed leaving the big names for a suitably important element, should one be discovered. It would better to name 114 or 118 Copernicium as both have isotope with 184 neutrons that should be more stable. The problem experimentally is getting enough neutrons to stick to get full shells.

My point remains, though, that if you put off something waiting for something better (not only in the case of naming elements after a particular person), there is always a danger of putting it off forever.

A theoretical study concluded some superheavies could be stable for hundreds or thousands of years although they might decay through alpha radiation due to quantum tunnelling because of their large physical size!

Interesting. I suppose we won't know until one of these is created.

As an aside ... I thought all radioactive decay involved a certain amount of quantum tunnelling. If there wasn't a potential barrier to tunnel through then surely the nucleus would never stick together in the first place.

[Mulder]

As an aside ... I thought all radioactive decay involved a certain amount of quantum tunnelling. If there wasn't a potential barrier to tunnel through then surely the nucleus would never stick together in the first place.

I never said it did not, I simply gave the reason for super fast alpha predicted in this particular case.