Materials Girl

Two TRULY NEW Materials! Not just remixes of old ones. Awesome. I’m so over Carbon based. (I’m kidding Kelly)

theweekmagazine:

Two new elements are joining the periodic table. Say hello to number 114, flerovium (Fl), and number 116, livermorium (Lv). The two newbies will sit “down in the lower-right corner of the periodic table.”

In real life, both elements are “so large and unstable” that they can only be created in a lab, says Jennifer Welsh at Live Science. Known as “super heavy” or “Transuranium” elements, “they fall apart into other elements very quickly,” so scientists haven’t been able to study their potential applications quite yet. The elements were first synthesized over 10 years ago, but it was only recently — and through repeated experiments — that their existence was finally confirmed.

But how do they get their names?