so now's the time to put in your bid for
the name for element 117 I think it
would be really good to name an element
after richard fineman so you could have
the element fine main IAM with the
elements symbol
I think FY would be quite nice
I'm particularly excited about element
117 you might ask why but 117 was the
only element in the periodic table when
we started this project when nobody had
even seen one atom it's never been
observed in any form at all so the
fields were wide open and I thought that
it would be quite impossible to make a
video when we were making videos about
each element about an element when
nobody's even seen one atom this
arrangement just seems to fall to bits
before it can properly form then about
three years ago our first video wasn't
very good
there was an exciting result from Russia
from Du Bois where they synthesized the
first atoms of element 117 now though
it's really exciting because it's it's
it's the generation of new matter you
know it's almost like a children's I'll
be spying it's like wow something new
something really exciting so those of
you who've watched our videos for a long
time will know that if you want to
synthesize a new element and have your
experiments accepted you have to wait
till somebody else has repeated the
experiments done it a different way and
got the same result otherwise anybody
could say oh I've seen an atom of
elements so and so in fact there has
been the case with element 118 where
somebody did cheat and the first results
were wrong and were faked I've explained
several times and you may have seen some
of the videos how you make these
elements you take a sample of a really
quite heavy element and the heavier the
better and then bombard it with atoms of
a lighter element which you accelerate
really fast after days perhaps they
stick together and you make a big atom
in the case of element 117 you choose
elements where the atomic numbers when
you add them together add up to 117
this case they used an element 97
berkelium and calcium which is element
number 2020 plus 97 makes 117 and the
atoms of calcium were accelerated in a
huge accelerator in Germany at the GSI
in dumb start to a speed that's about a
tenth the speed of light and banged into
the sample of berkelium and created a
few atoms now the technical problem is
that berkelium itself is a highly
radioactive and unstable element and in
a very productive demonstration of
international collaboration the
berkelium was made in america in the
Oakridge National Lab and then 13
milligrams that's a tiny bit just almost
too small to see just a few grains were
transported to Germany in order to do
this you can't just have a lamp of
berkelium you have to have one
particular isotope a single mass of
berkelium
they had berkelium to 49 and this sample
was transported to Germany and
radioactive it has a half-life of 330
days so it means every 330 days half of
it decays away so not only is it
radioactive but you have to work quite
quickly or your valuable sample is gone
before you get round to doing the
experiment so they did the experiment
the berkelium was made in the Oak Ridge
National Lab transported to Germany and
then it was bombarded with calcium atoms
and they looked for the signals for the
decay of element 117 and they saw
signals corresponding to the sorts of
decays that are here on my tie from
earlier radioactive elements they've
made and the way these elements decay is
that they give off alpha particles these
are
nuclei of helium atoms and the mass
changes in steps of four so the mass
goes down by four units and it
transforms one element into another and
in fact they discovered some quite
interesting isotopes of other elements
that were formed which had never been
observed before during this decay but
Kelly was such a pain in the backside
and I have to get this tiny sample which
decays away why don't they use different
elements one and they use fifty and
sixty seven I think the reason that they
use these pretty light atoms is that if
they get used bigger and bigger atoms
for the collision there's a likelihood
that everything will smash up because
the smaller elements are inherently
stronger and they don't fragment when
they hit the target and so I think if
you used 57 and 60 you'd just end up
with a fantastic mess of fragments going
everywhere you might make the old atom
of 117 but it would be lost in the noise
of everything else so the next stage is
the de committee a Joint Committee of
the International Union of pure and
applied chemistry and the corresponding
one of physics has to decide whether the
evidence is really good enough if
everybody is happy then there's the
exciting thing they choose the name for
the element they're the people who get
the honor of those that discover the
element originally I'm not sure whether
this would be that counted as the
Russians or the Germans but I suspect
that everybody will sit down together
and there was a huge team working on the
latest project I think more than 70
scientists from all sorts of different
countries and so now I'm going to put in
my bid I think it would be really good
to name an element after Richard Feynman
who was a physicist who worked on the
Manhattan Project so he has connections
with the Oakridge lab where the
berkelium was meant but he's also
a huge figure in modern nanotechnology
and a founder of much of the research
that is being done now so you could have
the element fine Manian with the
elements symbol
I think FY would be quite nice and that
would also serve another purpose because
when you see fineman's name written down
a lot of people are not sure whether you
should pronounce it Fineman or Feynman
but if the element symbol is FY they
will all know it has to be pronounced
Phi so my bid for this name is Phi
Manian a group of Russians and Germans
under the name of african-american there
are they I think it's quite possible
that they would because after all the
Germans named element a hundred and
twelve after Copernicus who was polish
and I think we have got to the stage now
where elements are being named after
figures or places that have a world role
and nationalism is going away and I
certainly think that anybody who's read
anything about Fineman could imagine
that he was a typical citizen of any
country he is about the most
unconventional scientist that is what
lived in the last hundred years
and also one of the really influential
ones as well professor for the last year
or two though I've heard you advocating
the name planck IAM we still haven't got
planck IAM have you have you abandoned
your love of the idea of Planck iam I
still like the name Planck Kim but
there's another element still 115 113 so
there's still opportunities and of
course 118 as well but 117 is an odd
number and it's good to name an odd
element after an odd scientist I've
already got the prize the prize is the
pleasure of finding the thing out the
kick in a discovery the observation
other people use it
those are the wheel things the honors
are unreal to me I don't believe in
honors