The names for the chemical elements 104 to 106 were the subject of a major controversy starting in the 1960s, described by some nuclear chemists as the Transfermium Wars because it concerned the elements following
fermium (element 100) on the
periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows (" periods") and columns (" groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other s ...
.
This controversy arose from disputes between American scientists and Soviet scientists as to which had first isolated these elements. The final resolution of this controversy in 1997 also decided the names of elements 107 to 109.
Controversy
By convention, naming rights for newly discovered chemical elements go to their discoverers. For elements 104, 105, and 106, there was a controversy between Soviet researchers at the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and American researchers at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory regarding which group had discovered them first. Both parties suggested their own names for elements 104 and 105, not recognizing the other's name.
The American name of
seaborgium
Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is als ...
for element 106 was also objectionable to some, because it referred to American chemist
Glenn T. Seaborg who was still alive at the time this name was proposed. (
Einsteinium and
fermium had also been proposed as names of new elements while
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
and
Enrico Fermi were still living, but only made public after their deaths, due to
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
secrecy.)
Opponents
The two principal groups which were involved in the conflict over element naming were:
* An American group at
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
* A Russian group at
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in
Dubna.
and, as a kind of arbiter,
* The
IUPAC
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...
Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry, which introduced its own proposal to the IUPAC General Assembly.
The German group at the
Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
, who had (undisputedly) discovered elements 107 to 109, were dragged into the controversy when the Commission suggested that the name "hahnium", proposed for element 105 by the Americans, be used for GSI's element 108 instead.
Proposals
Darmstadt
The names suggested for the elements 107 to 109 by the German group were:
IUPAC
In 1994, the IUPAC Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry proposed the following names:
This attempted to resolve the dispute by sharing the namings of the disputed elements between Russians and Americans, replacing the name for 104 with one honoring the
Dubna research center, and not naming 106 after Seaborg.
Objections to the IUPAC 94 proposal
This solution drew objections from the
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
(ACS) on the grounds that the right of the American group to propose the name for element 106 was not in question, and that group should have the right to name the element. Indeed,
IUPAC
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...
decided that the credit for the discovery of element 106 should be awarded to Berkeley.
Along the same lines, the German group protested against naming element 108 by the American suggestion "hahnium", mentioning the long-standing convention that an element is named by its discoverers.
In addition, given that many American books had already used rutherfordium and hahnium for 104 and 105, the ACS objected to those names being used for other elements.
In 1995, IUPAC abandoned the controversial rule and established a committee of national representatives aimed at finding a compromise. They suggested ''seaborgium'' for element 106 in exchange for the removal of all the other American proposals, except for the established name ''lawrencium'' for element 103. The equally entrenched name ''nobelium'' for element 102 was replaced by ''flerovium'' after
Georgy Flyorov, following the recognition by the 1993 report that that element had been first synthesized in Dubna. This was rejected by American scientists and the decision was retracted.
The name ''flerovium'' was later used for
element 114.
Resolution (IUPAC 97)
In 1996, IUPAC held another meeting, reconsidered all names in hand, and accepted another set of recommendations; finally, it was approved and published in 1997 on the 39th IUPAC General Assembly in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
, Switzerland.
Element 105 was named ''dubnium'' (Db), after
Dubna in Russia, the location of the JINR; the American suggestions were used for elements 102, 103, 104, and 106. The name ''dubnium'' had been used for element 104 in the previous IUPAC recommendation. The American scientists "reluctantly" approved this decision.
IUPAC pointed out that the Berkeley laboratory had already been recognized several times, in the naming of
berkelium,
californium, and
americium
Americium is a synthetic element, synthetic chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is radioactive and a transuranic member of the actinide series in the periodic table, located under the lanthanide element e ...
, and that the acceptance of the names ''rutherfordium'' and ''seaborgium'' for elements 104 and 106 should be offset by recognizing JINR's contributions to the discovery of elements 104, 105, and 106.
The following names were agreed in 1997 on the 39th IUPAC General Assembly in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
, Switzerland:
Thus, the convention of the discoverer's right to name their elements was respected for elements 106 to 109, and the two disputed claims were "shared" between the two opponents.
Summary
In some countries uninvolved in the dispute, such as Poland, Denmark, India, and Indonesia,
both ''kurchatovium'' for element 104 and ''hahnium'' for element 105 were used until 1997.
See also
*
List of chemical element name etymologies
*
List of chemical element naming controversies (includes Z = 23, 41, 70, 71, 74)
*
Systematic element name
*
Chemical nomenclature
Chemical nomenclature is a set of rules to generate systematic name#In chemistry, systematic names for chemical compounds. The nomenclature used most frequently worldwide is the one created and developed by the International Union of Pure and Appli ...
References
External links
Elementymology & Elements Multidict
{{History of chemistry
20th century in science
Naming of chemical elements
Chemical nomenclature
History of chemistry
History of physics
Rutherfordium
Dubnium
Seaborgium
Bohrium
Hassium
Meitnerium
Discovery and invention controversies
Naming controversies
Soviet Union–United States relations
Scientific rivalry