Talk:Transfermium Wars/Dubnium

The following is an extended version of the subsection Dubnium#Naming controversy. It could be used to improve this article.

Naming controversy

Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr and German nuclear chemist Otto Hahn

At the time, it was customary to announce a name for an element after its discovery. However, JINR did not propose a name after the release their first report claiming synthesis of element 105. This led LBL to believe that JINR did not have enough experimental data to back their claim. JINR held that they wanted to collect more data prior to proposing a name, and after doing so, they proposed the name nielsbohrium (Ns) in honor of the Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the theories of atomic structure and quantum theory. When LBL first announced their synthesis of element 105, they proposed that the new element should be named hahnium (Ha), after the German chemist Otto Hahn, the "father of nuclear chemistry", thus creating an element naming controversy.

In the early 1970s, tensions reduced somewhat. Both teams synthesized the next element, element 106, but decided not to suggest names. At that time, JINR suggested establishing an international committee to elaborate the discovery criteria. This proposal was accepted in 1974 and a neutral joint group formed. Neither team showed interest in resolving the conflict through a third party, and so the leading scientists of LBL—Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg—traveled to Dubna in 1975 and met with the leading scientists of JINR—Georgy Flerov, Yuri Oganessian, and others—in an attempt to resolve the conflict internally and render the neutral joint group unnecessary; after two hours of discussions, that attempt failed. The newly formed joint neutral group never assembled to assess the claims and the conflict remained unsolved. In 1979, IUPAC published a new suggested system of systematic element names to be used as placeholders until permanent names were established; under it, element 105 would be named unnilpentium, from the Latin roots un- and nil- and the Greek root pent- (meaning "one", "zero", and "five", respectively, referencing the digits of the atomic number). Both teams ignored it as they did not wish to weaken their claims by adopting a neutral naming system rather than their own.

In 1981, a third major competitor joined the race for superheavy elements—Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI; Society for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Hesse, West Germany. They claimed synthesis of element 107; their report came out five years after the first report from JINR but provided a greater level of precision, making a more solid claim on discovery. GSI joined with JINR in suggesting the name nielsbohrium for the new element, believing Bohr deserved to have an element named after him and hoping to ease the tension on the element 105 controversy. JINR did not suggest a new name for element 105, stating it was more important to determine its discoverers first.

Dubna

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Location of Dubna within European Russia

In 1985, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) formed a Joint Working Party (JWP) aimed at assessing discoveries and establishing final names for the elements in question. The party held numerous meetings with delegates from the three competing institutes; in 1990, they established criteria on recognizing an element, and in 1991, they completed the work on assessing discoverer statuses and disbanded. These results were published in 1993. According to the report, the first definitely successful experiment was the April 1970 LBL experiment, closely followed by the June 1970 JINR experiment, so credit for discovery of the element should be shared between the two teams.

LBL dismissed the report. In an open response, they said that the input from JINR was overrated in the review. In addition, they claimed JINR was only able to undoubtedly demonstrate the synthesis of element 105 at least a year after they did. JINR and GSI endorsed the report. The scientists from the former JWP rejected the criticisms from LBL.

In 1994, IUPAC published a recommendation on naming the disputed elements following the previous reports. For element 105, they proposed the name joliotium (Jl) after the French physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie, a significant contributor to the development of nuclear physics and chemistry; this name was originally proposed by the Soviet team for element 102, which by then had long been called nobelium. (The name nielsbohrium for element 107 was transformed to bohrium to conform with the practice set by all then-named elements.) This recommendation paper was criticized by the American scientists, for several reasons. Firstly, their suggestions were scrambled: the names rutherfordium and hahnium, originally suggested by Berkeley for elements 104 and 105, were respectively reassigned to elements 106 and 108. Secondly, elements 104 and 105 were given names favored by JINR, despite earlier recognition of LBL as an equal co-discoverer for both of them. Thirdly and most importantly, IUPAC rejected the name seaborgium for element 106, having just approved a rule that an element cannot be named to honor a living person, even though the 1993 report had given the LBL team the sole credit for its discovery.

In 1995, following the criticisms, IUPAC abandoned the controversial rule and established a committee of national representatives which was aimed at finding a compromise. They suggested their set of names, which did have seaborgium for element 106 in exchange for the removal of all the other American proposals, except for the entrenched name lawrencium for element 103. In particular, the equally entrenched name nobelium for element 102 was replaced by flerovium after Georgy Flerov following the recognition by the 1993 report that that element had been first convincingly synthesized in Dubna. This compromise was also rejected by American scientists and the decision was retracted. The name flerovium was later used for element 114.

In 1996, IUPAC held another meeting, reconsidered all names in hand, and accepted another set of recommendations; it was finally approved and published in 1997. Element 105 got its final name, dubnium (Db), after the Russian town of Dubna, the location of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, while the American suggestions were used for elements 102, 103, 104, and 106. The name dubnium had been used for element 104 in the previous IUPAC recommendation. This decision was "reluctantly" approved by the American scientists. IUPAC stated that the Berkeley laboratory had already been recognized several times in the naming of elements berkelium, californium, and americium, and that the acceptance of the names rutherfordium and seaborgium for elements 104 and 106 should be offset by recognizing JINR's contributions to the discovery of elements 104, 105, and 106. The matter of naming element 107 was transferred to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, who recommended bohrium.