Bohrium
⚛️ In Your World
Bohrium is a synthetic, superheavy element that has only ever been created a few atoms at a time in particle accelerators. Its most stable isotope has a half-life of about a minute. Due to its extreme instability and rarity, it has no applications outside of fundamental scientific research. Its existence is purely of interest to scientists studying the chemical properties of the heaviest elements.
📖 The Discovery Story
The synthesis of bohrium was first claimed in 1976 by a Soviet team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, led by Yuri Oganessian. However, it was first unambiguously confirmed in 1981 by a German research team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt. After a naming controversy, the element was officially named "bohrium" in 1997 in honor of Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory.
📊 Properties at a Glance
| Phase at STP | Solid (presumed) |
| Melting Point | Unknown |
| Boiling Point | Unknown |
| Electron Configuration | [Rn] 5f¹⁴6d⁵7s² (predicted) |
| Abundance in Earth's Crust | Essentially zero |
⚠️ Safety & Handling
Bohrium is intensely radioactive and extremely hazardous. It has only ever been produced on an atom-by-atom basis. All work with bohrium is conducted in specialized particle accelerator facilities with remote handling to protect researchers from its lethal radiation.