Across the Fence: Darmstadtium

Admittedly, chemistry has never been my forte, though in ninth grade I started out quite passionate and strong about it. Nothing prepared me for a chemical element of the name of Darmstadtium (pronounce: darm’shtutty-oom), but I would have recognized immediately that this Germanism was to be found on the periodical table. Why? Because Darmstadt is a German city, and the Latin syllable “ium” signifies that we are dealing with a thing (not a person or other living being).

Why had I never heard of it before I was looking into Germanisms this week? Because I decided to ditch chemistry after grade 11. The periodical table in our chemistry classroom showed 100 elements. And Darmstadtium bears the number 110. So, it was discovered later. Way later, by the way, as by the time I stopped taking chemistry in school, Hassium (which is number 108) had already been discovered. And I hadn’t heard about it either. Nobody talked about all these new discoveries in school. They were probably that new that not much was known about them. At least not enough to teach youngsters who were preparing to go to college or university one day and would learn about them then. If they went for chemistry …

Anyhow, nobody would come across Darmstadtium out in nature anyhow. It turns out to be a so-called synthetic element that is highly radioactive; its most stable isotope (an isotope is a variant of the same atom with the same number of protons as the others, but differing numbers of neutrons) has a half-life period of only 1.1 minute, according to Wikipedia. Now, that explains why there are no photos to be found anywhere. In fact, it’s amazing that they discovered anything that flighty, at all. I imagine that someone said,” Look at this!” And a second later it was already gone! Quite frustrating. They must have been happy to find at least one lasting a bit longer than one minute! That also makes it clear that the element can’t be used for anything outside a chemistry lab that is into the “behavior” of atoms.

Darmstadtium was created for the first time on November 9, 1994 at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in the city of Darmstadt. That’s the explanation for the name, and the city of Darmstadt is the only German city for which an element has been called.

As, for obvious reasons, I’m failing to produce a photo of Darmstadtium, you will have to do with a video about the city:

Darmstadt in the German state of Hesse holds the official title “City of Science” but is also known for its artist colony. Two wives of Russian Tsars were born in the city. Darmstadt has been around since the 11th century, but don’t expect to see that many historical buildings. I have visited once for a mystery shopping tour for my magazine and was sad about what was left of them. WW II took its toll, and so the inner city has been pretty much rebuilt afterwards. Still, with an open mind and a love for detail, you will find Darmstadt a fascinating city – and much more to look at than the element that is so treacherous.