The History of Chemistry

107: Transfermium Wars

Steve Cohen Episode 107

We now look at the controversies over discovery and rights to naming elements 104 to 109 in the 1960s to 1990s. The various laboratories included University of California--Berkeley, JINR at Dubna, and GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. There were arguments and spats over who discovered what, and what constitutes discovery. Eventually a Transfermium Working Group of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, along with the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, came to referee the battle--and even that caused more problems.

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