Mendelevium
⚛️ In Your World
Mendelevium is a synthetic element that is so intensely radioactive and has such a short half-life that it has no applications outside of fundamental scientific research. It has only ever been produced in unweighably small amounts—often just a few atoms at a time. Its existence is purely of interest to nuclear chemists and physicists studying the properties of matter at the extreme end of the periodic table.
📖 The Discovery Story
Mendelevium was the first element to be synthesized on an atom-by-atom basis. In 1955, a team led by Albert Ghiorso at the University of California, Berkeley, produced it by bombarding a target of einsteinium-253 (which itself was microscopic) with alpha particles. The team boldly proposed the name "mendelevium" to honor the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, the architect of the periodic table. At the height of the Cold War, naming an element after a Russian scientist was a controversial but ultimately successful gesture of scientific unity.
📊 Properties at a Glance
| Phase at STP | Solid (presumed) |
| Melting Point | 827 °C / 1521 °F (predicted) |
| Boiling Point | Unknown |
| Electron Configuration | [Rn] 5f¹³7s² |
| Abundance in Earth's Crust | Essentially zero |
⚠️ Safety & Handling
Mendelevium is intensely radioactive and extremely hazardous. It has never been produced in bulk, and its properties have only been studied using tracer quantities of a few atoms at a time. All work is conducted in specialized hot cells with remote manipulators to protect researchers from its lethal radiation.