In honor of which physicist are his American colleagues named after? Chemical elements named after scientists
TASS DOSSIER. On November 30, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the approval of the names of the newly discovered elements of the periodic table.
The 113th element was named nihonium (symbol - Ni, in honor of Japan), the 115th - moscovium (Mc, in honor of the Moscow region), 117 - tennessine (Ts, in honor of the state of Tennessee) and the 118th - oganesson ( Og, in honor of the Russian scientist Yuri Oganesyan).
The TASS-DOSSIER editors have prepared a list of other chemical elements named after Russian scientists and place names.
Ruthenium
Ruthenium (Ruthenium, symbol - Ru) is a chemical element with atomic number 44. It is a silver-colored transition metal of the platinum group. Used in electronics, chemistry, to create wear-resistant electrical contacts, resistors. Mined from platinum ore.
It was discovered in 1844 by Kazan University professor Carlos Klaus, who decided to name the element in honor of Russia (Ruthenia is one of the variants of the medieval Latin name for Rus').
Samarium
Samarium (Samarium, Sm) is a chemical element with atomic number 62. It is a rare earth metal from the lanthanide group. Widely used for the manufacture of magnets, in medicine (to fight cancer), for the manufacture of emergency control cassettes in nuclear reactors.
It was opened in 1878-1880. French and Swiss chemists Paul Lecoq de Boisbaudran and Jean Galissard de Marignac. They discovered a new element in the mineral samarskite found in the Ilmen Mountains and named it samarium (as a derivative of the mineral).
However, the mineral itself, in turn, was named after the Russian mining engineer, chief of staff of the Corps of Mining Engineers Vasily Samarsky-Bykhovets, who handed it over to foreign chemists for study.
Mendelevium
Mendelevium (Md) is a synthesized chemical element with atomic number 101. It is a highly radioactive metal.
The most stable isotope of the element has a half-life of 51.5 days. It can be obtained in laboratory conditions by bombarding einsteinium atoms with helium ions. It was discovered in 1955 by American scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA).
Despite the fact that at this time the USA and the USSR were in a state of Cold War, the discoverers of the element, among whom was one of the founders of nuclear chemistry, Glenn Seaborg, proposed to name it in honor of the creator of the periodic table - the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev. The US government agreed, and that same year IUPAC gave the element the name Mendelevium.
Dubniy
Dubnium (Db) is a synthesized chemical element with atomic number 105, a radioactive metal. The most stable of the isotopes has a half-life of about 1 hour. It is obtained by bombarding amerecium nuclei with neon ions. It was discovered in 1970 during independent experiments by physicists at the Nuclear Reaction Laboratory of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and the Berkeley Laboratory.
After more than 20 years of dispute about primacy in the discovery, IUPAC in 1993 decided to recognize both teams as the discoverers of the element and name it in honor of Dubna (while the Soviet Union proposed to name it nilsbohrium in honor of the Danish physicist Niels Bohr).
Flerovium
Flerovium (Fl) is a synthesized chemical element with atomic number 114. A highly radioactive substance with a half-life of no more than 2.7 seconds. It was first obtained by a group of physicists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna under the leadership of Yuri Oganesyan with the participation of scientists from the Livermo National Laboratory in the USA) by merging calcium and plutonium nuclei.
Named at the suggestion of Russian scientists in honor of one of the founders of the institute in Dubna, Georgy Flerov.
Moscovium and Oganesson
On June 8, a committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry recommended that the 115th element of the periodic table be named moscovium in honor of the Moscow region, where the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (the city of Dubna) is located.
The organization proposed to name the 118th element Oganesson in honor of its discoverer, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Oganessan.
Both chemical elements are synthesized with a half-life not exceeding a few fractions of seconds. They were discovered at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna during experiments in 2002-2005. The names proposed by IUPAC underwent public discussion and were approved by IUPAC on November 28, 2016.
Also, until 1997, in the USSR and Russia, the synthesized element with atomic number 104 was called kurchatovium, in honor of the physicist Igor Kurchatov, but IUPAC decided to name it in honor of the British physicist Ernest Rutherford - rutherfordium.
New elements of the periodic table will receive today in Moscow official names. The ceremony will take place at Central House of Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In the 2000s physicists from Dubna(Moscow region) together with American colleagues from Livermore National Laboratory got 114th And 116th elements .
The elements will be named after the laboratories where they were created. The 114th element was named " flerovium" - in honor of Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions named after. G.N. Flerova Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, where this element was synthesized. The 116th element was called " livermorium" - in honor of the scientists at Livermore National Laboratory who discovered it.
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry designated the new elements as Fl And Lv.
We called Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
There is no one, they said press secretary of the institute Boris Starchenko. - Everyone left for the Academy of Sciences and will return only tomorrow.
- Tell me, is this the first time you’ve had such joy at the institute?
No, this is not the first time we have such joy. Fifteen years ago, the 105th element of the system of elements of D.I. Mendeleev was given the name "Dubniy". Previously, this element was called Nilsborium, but it was renamed because it was our scientists who managed to obtain the element at our accelerator.
Boris Mikhailovich was in a hurry to attend the ceremony, but before hanging up, he managed to say that in addition to 105, 114 and 116 elements, scientists from Dubna were the first in the world to synthesize new, long-lived superheavy elements with serial numbers 113 , 115 ,117 And 118 .
EXPERT OPINION
Is this event so important for Russian science? Isn't this a fiction, like Petrik's filters and other pseudo-achievements of our scientific thought? We asked about this Evgeniy Gudilina, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Materials Sciences, Moscow State University.
What are you talking about, this is not a fiction, but a great event in Russian science. Discovering these elements and naming them is a matter of prestige. Just imagine. These names are imprinted on the periodic table. Forever. They will be studied at school.
- Tell me, why were names assigned only to elements 114 and 116? Where did the 115th go?
In fact, scientists from Dubna obtained 115, 117, and 113 and 118 elements. They too will someday be given names. The problem is that the naming procedure is very long. It lasts for years. According to the rules, before a new “member” of the periodic table is recognized, it must be discovered in two other laboratories in the world.
- Is this a very difficult process?
Very. In nature, only the first 92 elements of the periodic system exist. The rest are produced artificially in nuclear reactions. For example, the accelerator in Dubna accelerated atoms to speeds close to the speed of light. After the collision, the nuclei stuck together into larger formations. These formations do not live very long. A few fractions of a second. During this time, it is possible to obtain some information about their properties.
Tell me, why select new elements? My chemistry teacher said that, in principle, all the properties of elements were predicted long ago by physicists and therefore it is completely unnecessary to obtain them “live”...
Well, let's just say the teacher exaggerated. The chemical properties of elements can only be calculated with low accuracy. Molecules with heavy nuclei are difficult to describe.
- But if an element exists for a fraction of a second, how can you manage to describe its properties during this time?
This time is often enough to prove that the element is similar to one or another analogue.
- Tell me, is there a limit to the periodic table or can it be expanded indefinitely?
There is a limit. There is such a beautiful concept of “island of stability”. This term was coined by our scientists from Dubna. The elements located in this “island” have a relatively long lifetime. In those few fractions of a second that they live, you can manage to “identify” and characterize them. Now scientists have obtained almost all the elements from the island of stability. But there are suspicions that there is another island of stability. It is located further than 164 rooms...
BY THE WAY
Mendeleev's Periodic Table contains a number of elements named after Russian scientists.
Ruthenium, element with serial number 44. Named after Russia. Ruthenia is the Latin name for Rus'. Discovered by Kazan University professor Karl Klaus in 1844. Klaus isolated it from Ural platinum ore.
Dubniy, element with serial number 105, was renamed three times. It was first identified in 1967 by scientists from Dubna. Two months later, the element was discovered by the Ernest Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley (USA). Scientists from Dubna named the element Nilsborium in honor of Niels Bohr. American colleagues suggested the name Ganiy in honor of Otto Hahn. Element 105 appears under the name "ganium" in the American periodic system. In 1997, the International Society of Pure and Applied Chemistry resolved the discrepancies in the names of the elements. The 105th element became dubnium in honor of Dubna, its place of origin.
Kurchatovy. This name should have been given to the 104th element of the system. Soviet chemists received it in 1964 and proposed a name in honor of the great Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov. However, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry rejected the name. The Americans were not happy that the element was named after the creator of the atomic bomb. Now element 104 in the periodic system is called “Rutherfordium”.
Mendeleevius, the 101st element of the system, was isolated by the Americans in 1955. According to the rules, the right to name a new element belongs to those who discovered it. In recognition of the merits of the great Mendeleev, scientists proposed calling the element Mendeleev. For almost ten years, the synthesis of this element was considered the pinnacle of experimental skill.
Since the 1960s, there have been disputes between the University of California (USA) and the institute in Dubna over the names of the elements following fermium in the periodic table, which is number 100. As follows from domestic popular science publications on chemistry, “in In the priority conflict between our and American scientists regarding the discovery of elements No. 102...105, there is still no competent and independent arbitrator. The question of the final and fair name of the heaviest chemical elements remains unresolved."
One of the fundamental sciences of our planet is physics and its laws. Every day we take advantage of the benefits of scientific physicists who have been working for many years to make people's lives more comfortable and better. The existence of all humanity is built on the laws of physics, although we don’t think about it. Thanks to whom the lights are on in our homes, we can fly airplanes across the sky and sail across endless seas and oceans. We will talk about scientists who dedicated themselves to science. Who are the most famous physicists, whose work changed our lives forever. There are a huge number of great physicists in the history of mankind. We will tell you about seven of them.
Albert Einstein (Switzerland) (1879-1955)
Albert Einstein, one of the greatest physicists of mankind, was born on March 14, 1879 in the German city of Ulm. The great theoretical physicist can be called a man of peace; he had to live in difficult times for all mankind during two world wars and often moved from one country to another.
Einstein wrote more than 350 papers on physics. He is the creator of the special (1905) and general theories of relativity (1916), the principle of equivalence of mass and energy (1905). He developed many scientific theories: quantum photoelectric effect and quantum heat capacity. Together with Planck, he developed the foundations of quantum theory, which represents the basis of modern physics. Einstein has received a large number of awards for his works in the field of science. The crowning achievement of all awards is the Nobel Prize in physics, received by Albert in 1921.
Nikola Tesla (Serbia) (1856-1943)
The famous physicist-inventor was born in the small village of Smilyan on July 10, 1856. Tesla's work was far ahead of the time in which the scientist lived. Nikola is called the father of modern electricity. He made many discoveries and inventions, receiving more than 300 patents for his creations in all the countries where he worked. Nikola Tesla was not only a theoretical physicist, but also a brilliant engineer who created and tested his inventions.
Tesla discovered alternating current, wireless transmission of energy, electricity, his work led to the discovery of X-rays, and created a machine that caused vibrations in the surface of the earth. Nikola predicted the advent of an era of robots capable of doing any job. Due to his extravagant behavior, he did not gain recognition during his lifetime, but without his work it is difficult to imagine the daily life of a modern person.
Isaac Newton (England) (1643-1727)
One of the fathers of classical physics was born on January 4, 1643 in the town of Woolsthorpe in Great Britain. He was first a member and later the head of the Royal Society of Great Britain. Isaac formed and proved the main laws of mechanics. He substantiated the movement of the planets of the solar system around the Sun, as well as the onset of ebbs and flows. Newton created the foundation for modern physical optics. From the huge list of works of the great scientist, physicist, mathematician and astronomer, two works stand out: one of which was written in 1687 and “Optics”, published in 1704. The pinnacle of his work is the law of universal gravitation, known even to a ten-year-old child.
Stephen Hawking (England)
The most famous physicist of our time appeared on our planet on January 8, 1942 in Oxford. Stephen Hawking received his education at Oxford and Cambridge, where he later taught, and also worked at the Canadian Institute of Theoretical Physics. The main works of his life are related to quantum gravity and cosmology.
Hawking explored the theory of the origin of the world due to the Big Bang. He developed a theory of the disappearance of black holes due to the phenomenon called Hawking radiation in his honor. Considered the founder of quantum cosmology. A member of the oldest scientific society that Newton belonged to, the Royal Society of London for many years, having joined it in 1974, he is considered one of the youngest members accepted into the society. He does his best to introduce his contemporaries to science through his books and participating in television programs.
Marie Curie-Skłodowska (Poland, France) (1867-1934)
The most famous female physicist was born on November 7, 1867 in Poland. She graduated from the prestigious Sorbonne University, where she studied physics and chemistry, and subsequently became the first female teacher in the history of her Alma mater. Together with her husband Pierre and the famous physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, they studied the interaction of uranium salts and sunlight, and as a result of the experiments they received new radiation, which was called radioactivity. For this discovery, she and her colleagues received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Maria was a member of many scientific societies around the globe. She forever went down in history as the first person to receive the Nobel Prize in two categories: chemistry in 1911 and physics.
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (Germany) (1845-1923)
Roentgen first saw our world in the city of Lennep, Germany on March 27, 1845. He taught at the University of Würzburg, where on November 8, 1985 he made a discovery that changed the life of all mankind forever. He managed to discover X-rays, which were later named X-rays in honor of the scientist. His discovery became the impetus for the emergence of a number of new trends in science. Wilhelm Conrad went down in history as the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov (USSR, Russia)
On May 21, 1921, the future creator of the hydrogen bomb was born. Sakharov wrote many scientific papers on the topic of elementary particles and cosmology, magnetic hydrodynamics and astrophysics. But his main achievement is the creation of the hydrogen bomb. Sakharov was a brilliant physicist in the history of not only the vast country of the USSR, but also the world.
On February 22, 1857, German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born, after whom the unit of measurement of frequency was named. You have come across his name more than once in school physics textbooks. the site remembers famous scientists whose discoveries immortalized their names in science.
Blaise Pascal
(1623−1662)
“Happiness lies only in peace, and not in vanity,” said the French scientist Blaise Pascal. It seems that he himself did not strive for happiness, devoting his entire life to persistent research in mathematics, physics, philosophy and literature. His father was involved in the education of the future scientist, drawing up an extremely complex program in the field of natural sciences. Already at the age of 16, Pascal wrote the work “Essay on Conic Sections.” Now the theorem about which this work was described is called Pascal's theorem. The brilliant scientist became one of the founders of mathematical analysis and probability theory, and also formulated the main law of hydrostatics. Pascal devoted his free time to literature. He authored “Letters from a Provincial,” ridiculing the Jesuits, and serious religious works.
Pascal devoted his free time to literature
A unit of pressure measurement, a programming language, and a French university were named after the scientist. “Accidental discoveries are made only by prepared minds,” said Blaise Pascal, and in this he was certainly right.
Isaac Newton (1643−1727)
Doctors believed that Isaac was unlikely to live to old age and would suffer from serious illnesses- As a child, his health was very poor. Instead, the English scientist lived 84 years and laid the foundations of modern physics. Newton devoted all his time to science. His most famous discovery was the law of universal gravitation. The scientist formulated the three laws of classical mechanics, the fundamental theorem of analysis, made important discoveries in color theory and invented a reflecting telescope.Newton has a unit of force, an international physics award, 7 laws and 8 theorems named after him.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit 1686−1736
The unit of temperature measurement, the Fahrenheit degree, is named after the scientist.Daniel came from a wealthy merchant family. His parents hoped that he would continue the family business, so the future scientist studied trade.
The Fahrenheit scale is still widely used in the USA
If at some point he had not shown an interest in applied natural sciences, then the temperature measurement system that for a long time dominated in Europe would not have appeared. However, it cannot be called ideal, since the scientist took the body temperature of his wife, who, as luck would have it, had a cold at that time, as 100 degrees.Despite the fact that in the second half of the 20th century the Celsius scale supplanted the German scientist's system, the Fahrenheit temperature scale is still widely used in the United States.
Anders Celsius (1701−1744)
It is a mistake to think that the life of a scientist was spent in his office.
The degree Celsius was named after the Swedish scientist.It is not surprising that Anders Celsius devoted his life to science. His father and both grandfathers taught at a Swedish university, and his uncle was an orientalist and botanist. Anders was primarily interested in physics, geology and meteorology. It is a mistake to think that the life of a scientist lived only in his office. He participated in expeditions to the equator, to Lapland and studied the Northern Lights. Meanwhile, Celsius invented a temperature scale in which the boiling point of water was taken as 0 degrees, and the melting temperature of ice as 100 degrees. Subsequently, biologist Carl Linnaeus transformed the Celsius scale, and today it is used throughout the world.
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Gerolamo Umberto Volta (1745−1827)
People around him noticed that Alessandro Volta had the makings of a future scientist even in childhood. At the age of 12, an inquisitive boy decided to explore a spring not far from his house, where pieces of mica glittered, and almost drowned.
Alessandro received his primary education at the Royal Seminary in the Italian city of Como. At the age of 24 he defended his dissertation.
Alessandro Volta received the title of Senator and Count from Napoleon
Volta designed the world's first chemical source of electric current - the Voltaic Pillar. He successfully demonstrated a revolutionary discovery for science in France, for which he received the title of senator and count from Napoleon Bonaparte. The unit of measurement of electrical voltage, the Volt, is named after the scientist.
Andre-Marie Ampère (1775−1836)
The contribution of the French scientist to science is difficult to overestimate. It was he who coined the terms “electric current” and “cybernetics”. The study of electromagnetism allowed Ampere to formulate the law of interaction between electric currents and prove the theorem on the circulation of the magnetic field.The unit of electric current is named in his honor.
Georg Simon Ohm (1787−1854)
He received his primary education at a school where there was only one teacher. The future scientist studied works on physics and mathematics independently.
Georg dreamed of unraveling natural phenomena, and he completely succeeded. He proved the relationship between resistance, voltage and current in a circuit. Every schoolchild knows (or would like to believe that he knows) Ohm's law.Georg also received a PhD and has shared his knowledge with students at German universities for many years.The unit of electrical resistance is named after him.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857−1894)
Without the discoveries of the German physicist, television and radio simply would not exist. Heinrich Hertz investigated the electric and magnetic fields and experimentally confirmed Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light. For his discovery, he received several prestigious scientific awards, including even the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has approved the names of four new elements of the periodic table: 113, 115, 117 and 118. The latter is named after the Russian physicist, academician Yuri Oganesyan. Scientists have been “caught in the box” before: Mendeleev, Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford, the Curies... But only the second time in history this happened during the lifetime of a scientist. A precedent occurred in 1997, when Glenn Seaborg received such an honor. Yuri Oganesyan has long been tipped for the Nobel Prize. But, you see, getting your own cell in the periodic table is much cooler.
In the lower lines of the table you can easily find uranium, its atomic number is 92. All subsequent elements, starting from 93, are the so-called transurans. Some of them appeared about 10 billion years ago as a result of nuclear reactions inside stars. Traces of plutonium and neptunium have been found in the earth's crust. But most of the transuranic elements have long since decayed, and now we can only predict what they were like and then try to recreate them in the laboratory.
The first to do this were American scientists Glenn Seaborg and Edwin MacMillan in 1940. Plutonium was born. Later, Seaborg's group synthesized americium, curium, berkelium... By that time, almost the entire world had joined the race for superheavy nuclei.
Yuri Oganesyan (b. 1933). MEPhI graduate, specialist in the field of nuclear physics, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientific director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of JINR. Chairman of the RAS Scientific Council for Applied Nuclear Physics. He has honorary titles at universities and academies in Japan, France, Italy, Germany and other countries. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, Friendship of Peoples, “For Services to the Fatherland”, etc. Photo: wikipedia.org
In 1964, a new chemical element with atomic number 104 was first synthesized in the USSR, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), which is located in Dubna near Moscow. Later this element received the name "rutherfordium". The project was led by one of the founders of the institute, Georgy Flerov. His name is also included in the table: flerovium, 114.
Yuri Oganesyan was a student of Flerov and one of those who synthesized rutherfordium, then dubnium and heavier elements. Thanks to the successes of Soviet scientists, Russia became the leader in the transuranium race and still maintains this status.
The scientific team whose work led to the discovery sends its proposal to IUPAC. The Commission considers the pros and cons based on the following rules: “...newly discovered elements may be named: (a) by the name of a mythological character or concept (including an astronomical object), (b) by the name of a mineral or similar substance, (c) by the name of a locality or geographical area, (d) in accordance with the properties of the element, or (e) by the name of the scientist."
The names of the four new elements took a long time, almost a year. The announcement date for the decision was pushed back several times. The tension was growing. Finally, on November 28, 2016, after a five-month period for receiving proposals and public objections, the commission found no reason to reject nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson and approved them.
By the way, the suffix “-on-” is not very typical for chemical elements. It was chosen for oganesson because the chemical properties of the new element are similar to noble gases - this similarity is emphasized by its consonance with neon, argon, krypton, and xenon.
The birth of a new element is an event of historical proportions. To date, elements of the seventh period up to the 118th inclusive have been synthesized, and this is not the limit. Ahead are the 119th, 120th, 121st... Isotopes of elements with atomic numbers greater than 100 often live no more than a thousandth of a second. And it seems that the heavier the core, the shorter its life. This rule applies up to the 113th element inclusive.
In the 1960s, Georgy Flerov suggested that it does not have to be strictly observed as one goes deeper into the table. But how to prove this? The search for so-called islands of stability has been one of the most important problems in physics for more than 40 years. In 2006, a team of scientists led by Yuri Oganesyan confirmed their existence. The scientific world breathed a sigh of relief: this means there is a point in looking for increasingly heavier nuclei.
Corridor of the legendary Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of JINR. Photo: Daria Golubovich/"Schrodinger's Cat"
Yuri Tsolakovich, what exactly are the islands of stability that have been talked about a lot lately?
Yuri Oganesyan: You know that the nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons. But only a strictly defined number of these “building blocks” are connected to each other into a single body, which represents the nucleus of an atom. There are more combinations that “don’t work”. Therefore, in principle, our world is in a sea of instability. Yes, there are nuclei that have remained since the formation of the Solar System, they are stable. Hydrogen, for example. We will call areas with such cores “continents”. It gradually goes into a sea of instability as we move towards heavier elements. But it turns out that if you go far from land, an island of stability appears, where long-lived nuclei are born. The island of stability is a discovery that has already been made and recognized, but the exact lifespan of centenarians on this island has not yet been predicted well enough.
How were the islands of stability discovered?
Yuri Oganesyan: We looked for them for a long time. When a task is posed, it is important that there is a clear answer “yes” or “no”. There are actually two reasons for a zero result: either you didn’t reach it, or what you’re looking for doesn’t exist at all. We had zero until 2000. We thought that maybe the theorists were right when they painted their beautiful pictures, but we couldn’t reach them. In the 90s, we came to the conclusion that it was worth complicating the experiment. This contradicted the realities of the time: new equipment was needed, but there were not enough funds. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 21st century, we were ready to try a new approach - irradiating plutonium with calcium-48.
Why is calcium-48, this particular isotope, so important to you?
Yuri Oganesyan: It has eight extra neutrons. And we knew that the island of stability is where there is an excess of neutrons. Therefore, the heavy isotope of plutonium-244 was irradiated with calcium-48. In this reaction, an isotope of the superheavy element 114, flerovium-289, was synthesized, which lives for 2.7 seconds. On the scale of nuclear transformations, this time is considered quite long and serves as proof that an island of stability exists. We swam to it, and as we moved deeper, the stability only grew.
A fragment of the ACCULINNA-2 separator, which is used to study the structure of light exotic nuclei. Photo: Daria Golubovich/"Schrodinger's Cat"
Why, in principle, was there confidence that there were islands of stability?
Yuri Oganesyan: Confidence appeared when it became clear that the nucleus has a structure... Long ago, back in 1928, our great compatriot Georgy Gamow (Soviet and American theoretical physicist) suggested that nuclear matter is like a drop of liquid. When this model began to be tested, it turned out that it described the global properties of nuclei surprisingly well. But then our laboratory received a result that radically changed these ideas. We found that in its normal state the nucleus does not behave like a drop of liquid, is not an amorphous body, but has an internal structure. Without it, the core would only exist for 10-19 seconds. And the presence of structural properties of nuclear matter leads to the fact that the nucleus lives for seconds, hours, and we hope that it can live for days, and maybe even millions of years. This hope may be too bold, but we hope and are looking for transuranium elements in nature.
One of the most exciting questions: is there a limit to the diversity of chemical elements? Or are there infinitely many of them?
Yuri Oganesyan: The drip model predicted that there were no more than a hundred of them. From her point of view, there is a limit to the existence of new elements. Today, 118 of them have been discovered. How many more can there be?.. It is necessary to understand the distinctive properties of “island” nuclei in order to make a forecast for heavier ones. From the point of view of microscopic theory, which takes into account the structure of the nucleus, our world does not end with the hundredth element leaving into the sea of instability. When we talk about the limit of the existence of atomic nuclei, we must definitely take this into account.
Is there an achievement that you consider the most important in life?
Yuri Oganesyan: I do what really interests me. Sometimes I get very carried away. Sometimes something works out, and I'm glad it worked out. That's life. This is not an episode. I do not belong to the category of people who dreamed of being scientists in childhood, at school, no. But somehow I was just good at mathematics and physics, and so I went to the university where I had to take these exams. Well, I passed. And in general, I believe that in life we are all very susceptible to accidents. Really, right? We take many steps in life completely randomly. And then, when you become an adult, you are asked the question: “Why did you do that?” Well, I did and did. This is my usual science activity.
"We can get one atom of element 118 in a month"
Now JINR is building the world's first factory of superheavy elements based on the DRIBs-III (Dubna Radioactive Ion Beams) ion accelerator, the most powerful in its energy field. There they will synthesize superheavy elements of the eighth period (119, 120, 121) and produce radioactive materials for targets. Experiments will begin at the end of 2017 - beginning of 2018. Andrey Popeko, from the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions named after. G. N. Flyorov JINR, told why all this is needed.
Andrey Georgievich, how are the properties of new elements predicted?
Andrey Popeko: The main property from which all others follow is the mass of the nucleus. It is very difficult to predict it, but based on the mass, one can already guess how the nucleus will decay. There are different experimental patterns. You can study the nucleus and, say, try to describe its properties. Knowing something about mass, we can talk about the energy of particles that the nucleus will emit and make predictions about its lifetime. This is quite cumbersome and not very accurate, but more or less reliable. But if the nucleus fissions spontaneously, prediction becomes much more difficult and less accurate.
What can we say about the properties of 118?
Andrey Popeko: It lives for 0.07 seconds and emits alpha particles with an energy of 11.7 MeV. It's measured. In the future, you can compare experimental data with theoretical ones and correct the model.
In one of your lectures you said that the table probably ends at the 174th element. Why?
Andrey Popeko: It is assumed that further electrons will simply fall onto the nucleus. The more charge a nucleus has, the more strongly it attracts electrons. The nucleus is plus, electrons are minus. At some point, the nucleus will attract electrons so strongly that they must fall onto it. The limit of elements will come.
Can such nuclei exist?
Andrey Popeko: If we believe that element 174 exists, we believe that its nucleus also exists. But is it? Uranium, element 92, lives for 4.5 billion years, and element 118 lasts less than a millisecond. Actually, it was previously believed that the table ends at an element whose lifetime is negligible. Then it turned out that not everything is so simple if you move according to the table. First, the lifetime of an element drops, then the next one increases a little, then drops again.
Rolls with track membranes - a nanomaterial for purifying blood plasma in the treatment of severe infectious diseases and eliminating the consequences of chemotherapy. These membranes were developed at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of JINR back in the 1970s. Photo: Daria Golubovich/"Schrodinger's Cat"
When it increases, is this an island of stability?
Andrey Popeko: This is an indication that it exists. This is clearly visible on the graphs.
Then what is the island of stability itself?
Andrey Popeko: A certain region in which there are isotope nuclei that have a longer lifetime than their neighbors.
Is this area yet to be found?
Andrey Popeko: So far only the very edge has been caught.
What will you look for in a super heavy element factory?
Andrey Popeko: Experiments on the synthesis of elements take a lot of time. On average, six months of continuous work. We can get one atom of element 118 in a month. In addition, we work with highly radioactive materials and our premises must meet special requirements. But when the laboratory was created, they did not yet exist. Now a separate building is being built in compliance with all radiation safety requirements - only for these experiments. The accelerator is designed for the synthesis of transuraniums. We will, firstly, study in detail the properties of the 117th and 118th elements. Secondly, look for new isotopes. Thirdly, try to synthesize even heavier elements. You can get 119th and 120th.
Are there any plans to experiment with new target materials?
Andrey Popeko: We have already started working with titanium. They spent a total of 20 years on calcium and obtained six new elements.
Unfortunately, there are not many scientific fields where Russia occupies a leading position. How do we manage to win the fight for transuraniums?
Andrey Popeko: Actually, the leaders here have always been the United States and the Soviet Union. The fact is that the main material for creating atomic weapons was plutonium - it had to be obtained somehow. Then we thought: shouldn’t we use other substances? From nuclear theory it follows that we need to take elements with an even number and an odd atomic weight. We tried curium-245 - it didn’t work. California-249 too. They began to study transuranium elements. It so happened that the Soviet Union and America were the first to take up this issue. Then Germany - there was a discussion there in the 60s: is it worth getting involved in the game if the Russians and Americans have already done everything? Theorists have convinced that it is worth it. As a result, the Germans received six elements: from 107 to 112. By the way, the method they chose was developed by Yuri Oganesyan in the 70s. And he, being the director of our laboratory, released the leading physicists to help the Germans. Everyone was surprised: “How is this?” But science is science, there should be no competition here. If there is an opportunity to gain new knowledge, you should participate.
Superconducting ECR source - with the help of which beams of highly charged ions of xenon, iodine, krypton, argon are produced. Photo: Daria Golubovich/"Schrodinger's Cat"
Did JINR choose a different method?
Andrey Popeko: Yes. It turned out that it was also successful. Somewhat later, the Japanese began to conduct similar experiments. And they synthesized the 113th. We received it almost a year earlier as a product of the collapse of the 115th, but did not argue. God be with them, don't mind. This Japanese group interned with us - we know many of them personally and are friends. And this is very good. In a sense, it was our students who received the 113th element. By the way, they confirmed our results. There are few people willing to confirm other people's results.
This requires a certain honesty.
Andrey Popeko: Well, yes. How else? In science, it’s probably like this.
What is it like to study a phenomenon that only about five hundred people around the world will truly understand?
Andrey Popeko: I like. I've been doing this all my life, 48 years.
Most of us find it incredibly difficult to understand what you do. The synthesis of transuranium elements is not a topic that is discussed at dinner with the family.
Andrey Popeko: We generate new knowledge, and it will not be lost. If we can study the chemistry of individual atoms, then we have analytical methods of the highest sensitivity, which are certainly suitable for studying substances that pollute the environment. For the production of rare isotopes in radiomedicine. Who will understand the physics of elementary particles? Who will understand what the Higgs boson is?
Yes. Similar story.
Andrey Popeko: True, there are still more people who understand what the Higgs boson is than those who understand superheavy elements... Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider provide extremely important practical results. It was at the European Nuclear Research Center that the Internet was born.
The Internet is a favorite example of physicists.
Andrey Popeko: What about superconductivity, electronics, detectors, new materials, tomography methods? These are all side effects of high energy physics. New knowledge will never be lost.
Gods and heroes. Who were the chemical elements named after?
Vanadium, V(1801). Vanadis is the Scandinavian goddess of love, beauty, fertility and war (how does she do it all?). Lord of the Valkyries. She is Freya, Gefna, Hern, Mardell, Sur, Valfreya. This name is given to the element because it forms multi-colored and very beautiful compounds, and the goddess seems to be very beautiful too.
Niobium, Nb(1801). It was originally called columbium in honor of the country from which the first sample of the mineral containing this element was brought. But then tantalum was discovered, which in almost all chemical properties coincided with columbium. As a result, it was decided to name the element after Niobe, the daughter of the Greek king Tantalus.
Palladium, Pd(1802). In honor of the asteroid Pallas discovered in the same year, the name of which also goes back to the myths of Ancient Greece.
Cadmium, Cd(1817). This element was originally mined from zinc ore, the Greek name of which is directly related to the hero Cadmus. This character lived a bright and eventful life: he defeated the dragon, married Harmony, and founded Thebes.
Promethium, Pm(1945). Yes, this is the same Prometheus who gave fire to people, after which he had serious problems with the divine authorities. And with liver.
Samaria, Sm(1878). No, this is not entirely in honor of the city of Samara. The element was isolated from the mineral samarskite, which was provided to European scientists by Russian mining engineer Vasily Samarsky-Bykhovets (1803-1870). This can be considered the first entry of our country into the periodic table (if you do not take into account its name, of course).
Gadolinium, Gd(1880 Named after Johan Gadolin (1760-1852), Finnish chemist and physicist who discovered the element yttrium.
Tantalum, Ta(1802). The Greek king Tantalus offended the gods (there are different versions of why), for which he was tortured in every possible way in the underworld. Scientists suffered in much the same way when trying to obtain pure tantalum. It took more than a hundred years.
Thorium, Th(1828). The discoverer was the Swedish chemist Jons Berzelius, who named the element in honor of the stern Scandinavian god Thor.
Curium, Cm(1944). The only element named after two people - Nobel laureates Pierre (1859-1906) and Marie (1867-1934) Curie.
Einsteinium, Es(1952). Everything is clear here: Einstein, a great scientist. True, I have never been involved in the synthesis of new elements.
Fermium, Fm(1952). Named in honor of Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), an Italian-American scientist who made a major contribution to the development of particle physics and creator of the first nuclear reactor.
Mendelevium, Md.(1955). This is in honor of our Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907). The only strange thing is that the author of the periodic law did not immediately appear in the table.
Nobelium, No(1957). There has been controversy over the name of this element for a long time. The priority in its discovery belongs to scientists from Dubna, who named it joliotium in honor of another representative of the Curie family - the son-in-law of Pierre and Marie Frederic Joliot-Curie (also a Nobel laureate). At the same time, a group of physicists working in Sweden proposed to perpetuate the memory of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). For quite a long time, in the Soviet version of the periodic table, the 102nd was listed as joliotium, and in the American and European versions - as nobelium. But in the end, IUPAC, recognizing Soviet priority, left the Western version.
Lawrence, Lr(1961). About the same story as with Nobelium. Scientists from JINR proposed to name the element rutherfordium in honor of the “father of nuclear physics” Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), the Americans - lawrencium in honor of the inventor of the cyclotron, physicist Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958). The American application won, and element 104 became rutherfordium.
Rutherfordium, Rf(1964). In the USSR it was called kurchatovium in honor of the Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov. The final name was approved by IUPAC only in 1997.
Seaborgium, Sg(1974). The first and only case until 2016 when a chemical element was named after a living scientist. This was an exception to the rule, but Glenn Seaborg’s contribution to the synthesis of new elements was extremely great (about a dozen cells in the periodic table).
Borii, Bh(1976). There was also a discussion about the name and priority of the opening. In 1992, Soviet and German scientists agreed to name the element nilsborium in honor of the Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962). IUPAC approved the abbreviated name - bohrium. This decision cannot be called humane in relation to schoolchildren: they have to remember that boron and bohrium are completely different elements.
Meitnerium, Mt.(1982). Named after Lise Meitner (1878-1968), a physicist and radiochemist who worked in Austria, Sweden and the USA. By the way, Meitner was one of the few major scientists who refused to participate in the Manhattan Project. Being a convinced pacifist, she declared: “I will not make a bomb!”
X-ray, Rg(1994). The discoverer of the famous rays, the first ever Nobel laureate in physics, Wilhelm Roentgen (1845-1923), is immortalized in this cell. The element was synthesized by German scientists, although the research group also included representatives from Dubna, including Andrei Popeko.
Copernicius, Cn(1996). In honor of the great astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). How he ended up on a par with the physicists of the 19th-20th centuries is not entirely clear. And it’s not at all clear what to call the element in Russian: copernicium or copernicium? Both options are considered acceptable.
Flerovium, Fl(1998). By approving this name, the international chemistry community demonstrated that it values the contribution of Russian physicists to the synthesis of new elements. Georgy Flerov (1913-1990) headed the laboratory of nuclear reactions at JINR, where many transuranium elements were synthesized (in particular, from 102 to 110). The achievements of JINR are also immortalized in the names of the 105th element ( dubnium), 115th ( Moscow- Dubna is located in the Moscow region) and 118th ( oganesson).
Oganesson, Og(2002). The Americans initially announced the synthesis of element 118 in 1999. And they suggested calling it Giorsi in honor of the physicist Albert Giorso. But their experiment turned out to be wrong. The priority of the discovery was recognized by scientists from Dubna. In the summer of 2016, IUPAC recommended giving the element the name oganesson in honor of Yuri Oganesyan.