Yes, this new element was named after the astronomer Copernicus. As such, element number 112 will be named
Copernicum, with the element symbol of
Cp.
Darn. Yet another element to learn!
Will element Number
113 (a prime number, incidentially) therefore now be named
Galileoium, followed by
Tychonium,
Keplerium and
Newtonium?
Thank goodness it is the 2009 IYA !!! Good commemoration as a name.
As seanliddeloe (Sean( was right when he said;
"
I hope they name one gailleoum for the IYA "
As to your BBC link... well, if you rely needlessly on the headline rather than the science, what else do you expect? I.e. Presumably if the English BBC News
were actually talking to Professor Sigurd Hofmann from the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschun "
No, I think copernicium sounds much better." Surely, wouldn't you ask better questions about the researcher and discoverer (or even integrate it into the headline the article) rather than ask such an inane question?
A better article to read is at ScienceDaily; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0714124848.htm
Exact grammar, as it appears in this BBC article, sadly remains just a sideline victim here IMO
Note: A better read on the discovery of this element is the IUPAP technical report in the article by Barber, R.C., etal. "
Discovery of the Element With Atomic Number 112"; itself at;
http://media.iupac.org/publications/.../8107x1331.pdf
(Note : Professor Hofmann
does not actually appear in this latest conformational paper . I.e. He is not directly related to the actual published
conformational discovery! Reading the article's Abstract, the preliminary discovery was made in 1996 and 2002, and it has taken
twelve long years to confirm the experiment. G.Dawes stating the short lifetime of this new element is likely the basis of the trouble in confirming it!)
Pity the BBC News isn't nowhere near in details or as informative!
New Element is called Copernicium
Transfermium : The Science of New Heavy Elements
