rutherfordium

[ruhth-er-fawr-dee-uhm, -fohr-, ruhth-]

noun

Chemistry, Physics.

1. a superheavy, synthetic, radioactive element with a very short half-life. Rf; 104.

rutherfordium

/ ˌrʌðəˈfɔːdɪəm /

noun

1. Name in the former Soviet Union: kurchatovium. a transactinide element produced by bombarding californium-249 nuclei with carbon-12 nuclei. Symbol: Rf; atomic number.: 104; atomic wt: 261

rutherfordium

1. A synthetic, radioactive element that is produced by bombarding plutonium with carbon or neon ions. Its most stable isotope is Rf 261 with a half-life of 62 seconds. Atomic number 104.

2. See Periodic Table

Word History and Origins

Origin of rutherfordium¹

First recorded in 1965–70; officially assigned to element 104 in 1997; named after English physicist Ernest Rutherford; -ium ( def. )

Word History and Origins

Origin of rutherfordium¹

C20: named after Ernest _Rutherford

Example Sentences

Over the course of 30 years, his inventions contributed to the discovery of americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium and seaborgium.

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Many are named after great scientists: einsteinium, curium, fermium, mendelevium, bohrium and rutherfordium.

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Out go thorium, uranium and plutonium, along with a whole bestiary of synthetically-created elements - rutherfordium, seaborgium, ununpentium, einsteinium - which only ever exist momentarily as part of a lab experiment, before radioactively decomposing.

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