1996: Copernicium - The book of science

Copernicium
Atomic number 112
Impractical uses
Commentary

Darmstadt—Sigurd Hofmann, Victor Ninov, Fritz Peter Heßberger, Peter Armbruster, H. Folger, Gottfried Münzenberg, H. J. Schött elements

Copernicium

The team at Darmstadt
bombarded lead-208
with nuclei of zinc-70
and detected a single atom
of copernicium-277,
assuming one stray neutron.
By this time, the arithmetic
was clear to everyone.
Given that stray neutron,
they might have produced
a single atom of copernicium-278,
but that must have been
an especially slippery neutron.

Atomic number 112

Controversy about the decay chain
of compernicuim
delayed confirmation of its discovery
until 2009.
Copernicium is expected
not to behave exactly
like a heavier zinc, cadmium, or mercury
“due to relativistic effects,”
In heavier elements,
electrons in atomic orbitals
travel at a significant fraction
of the speed of light,
doing strange things
to the chemistry.

Impractical uses

So few atoms have been synthesized,
and hardly more than one at a time,
and they decay so quickly,
that the chemistry of copernicium
and its state at room temperature
are speculative.
It would certainly be impractical
to try to power a wristwatch
with the element.
Even if enough copernicium could be synthesized,
the cost of copernicium mosquito zappers
would be prohibitive.
Copernicium-powered time-travel
and quantum-tunnelling devices
are off the table.

In heavier elements, electrons in s and p atomic orbitals travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light, which increases the relativistic mass of those electrons.

See also in The book of science:

1869—Periodic table—Dmitri Mendeleev

Readings on wikipedia:

“Sigurd Hofmann”
“Copernicium”
“Isotopes of copernicium”
“Relativistic quantum chemistry”
“Timeline of chemical element discoveries”

Other readings:

“Copernicium,” Elementymology & Elements Multidict, by Peter van der Krogt