Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:06, 3 August 2002

The names for the chemical elements 104 to 108 have been the subject of a major controversy starting in the 1960s which was only finally resolved in 1997. At issue was the convention that elements are named by their discoverers which led to controversy when multiple groups claimed discovery simultaneously. The three groups which conflicted over elemental naming were an American group in Berkeley, a Russian group at Dubna, and a German group.

The names preferred by the Americans were

104 - rutherfordium

105 - hahnium

106 - seaborgium

The names preferred by the Russians were

104 - kurchatovium

105 - nielsbohrium

Element 104 was named after Igor Kurchatov who was father of the Russian atomic bomb, and this was one reason the name was objectionable to the Americans. The American name to 106 was objectable to some because Glenn T. Seaborg was still alive.

In 1994, the IUPAC proposed the following names

104 - dubnium

105 - joliotium

106 - rutherfordium

107 - bohrium

108 - hahnium

109 - meitnerium

This attempted to resolve the dispute by replacing the name for 104 with a name after the the Dubna research center, and to not name 106 after Seaborg.

This was objected to by the American Chemical Society on the grounds that the discovery of 106 by an American group was not in question and that group should have the right to name the element whatever it wanted to. In addition, given that many American books had already used 104 and 105 for rutherfordium and hahnium, the ACS objected to those names being used for other elements.

Finally in 1997, the following names were agreed to

104 - rutherfordium

105 - dubnium

106 - seaborgium

107 - bohrium

108 - hassium

109 - meitnerium