Desperately seeking names for new elements
For anyone studying chemistry, there's big news: Four new entrants to the periodic table.
If you really can't remember that far back, the periodic table is that cool chart in science class that displays all the known chemical elements. Anyway, these four new elements are man-made and highly unstable.
And they don't really have names yet, just numbers: 113, 115, 117 and 118. So what will they be called?
"Traditionally, the names of elements have either been associated with people or with places, or perhaps some figure from Greek mythology," says Andrea Sella, a chemistry professor at University College London.
Greek mythology?
Yes. It's the element called, Promethium.
But the naming process is just that, a process. The BBC detailed it. "Scientists who discovered them will start things off by proposing a name. But it will be down to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to approve it. A special division of the US-based group has to accept the proposal. There is th
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