1939: Francium - The book of science

Francium
Atomic number 87
Unlucky 87
Commentary

Francium

After many erroneous discoveries,
Marguerite Perey identified the new element
contaminating a purified sample of actinium-227,
which decayed to thorium-227 and francium-223.
Extremely radioactive, francium
has at least thirty four isotopes.
The most stable isotope, francium-223,
decays into astatine and radium
with a half-life of less than 22 minutes.

Atomic number 87

D. K. Dobroserdov thought he had found it
and named it russium.
Gerald J. F. Druce and Frederick H. Loring
thought they had found it
and named it alkalinium.
Fred Allison thought he had found it
and named it virginium.
Horia Hulubei and Yvette Cauchois
thought they had found it
and named it moldavium.
When Marguerite Perey found it
she named it actinium-K.
Later, she wanted to name it catium,
but Irène Joliot-Curie said catium
sounded more like “cat” than “cation”
so Perey suggested francium.

Unlucky 87

No stable isotope of francium
has been found or synthesized.
Nothing can be made of it. If it could be
gathered, it would vaporize itself.
Francium does not represent the universe
my grandparents grew up with,
in which atoms and stars were immutable
and, kneeling before nature, we were nothing.

Francium was the last element to be found first in nature. All the remaining 29 known elements have been synthesized first. Although astintine, for example, occurs in nature, it was discovered first by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles.