Carolinium
Carolinium and berzelium were the proposed names for new chemical elements that Charles Baskerville believed he had isolated from the already known element thorium.
History
[edit]During his time at the University of North Carolina, Baskerville experimented with thorium and published his results in 1901.[1] He reported having separated thorium into three fractions with slightly different chemical properties: the known thorium and two new elements, carolinium (symbol Cn) and berzelium (symbol Bz).
The names derived from two sources:
- the first element was named for the State in which the university was located at which the experiments were done, North Carolina, and
- the other element was named after Jöns Jakob Berzelius, a renowned Swedish chemist and discoverer of silicon, selenium, cerium and thorium.[2]
As a response to the publication Bohuslav Brauner claimed that he already stated the fact that thorium should be a mixture of several elements.[3]
In 1905, R. J. Meyer and A. Gumperz failed to replicate the results, and showed that thorium is only one element and not a mixture.[4]
H. G. Wells's 1914 novel The World Set Free features an atomic bomb based on the similarly named "Carolinum". When detonated, the bomb continues to explode indefinitely.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Baskerville, Charles (1901). "On the Existence of a new Element associated with Thorium". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 23 (10): 761–764. doi:10.1021/ja02036a004.
- ^ Baskerville, Charles (1904). "Carolinium, Berzelium, Thorium". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 26 (8): 922. doi:10.1021/ja01998a003.
- ^ Brauner, Bohuslav; Baskerville, Charles (June 1904). "The Complex Nature of Thorium". Science. 19 (493): 892–893. Bibcode:1904Sci....19..892B. doi:10.1126/science.19.493.892. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17770214.
- ^ Meyer, Richard Joseph; Gumperz, A. (1905). "Zur Frage der Einheitlichkeit des Thoriums". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. 38: 817–825. doi:10.1002/cber.190503801140.
- ^ Wells, H. G. (1914). "2". The World Set Free.
[T]he new bombs that would continue to explode indefinitely...
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