Copernicium

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A synthetic chemical element with the symbol Cn and atomic number 112, discovered in 1996 by a German research team ; its extremely short half-life renders it highly unstable and currently has no practical applications
2. An artificially created element denoted as Cn, atomic number 112 ; first identified at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research ; notable for being named after astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
3. A man-made, radioactive element labeled by symbol Cn and atomic number 112 ; notable for being grouped in the same periodic table column as zinc and mercury ; it was synthesized by bombarding lead with zinc ions

Etymology: Copernicium is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish astronomer (1473–1543) whose work placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the centre of the solar system. The element is one of the few chemical elements named for a scientist who never saw it, or indeed anything like it: Copernicus died long before the discovery of radioactivity, let alone the synthesis of superheavy atoms. The name follows a long-standing pattern in chemistry. Many elements honour scientists, and the suffix "-ium" is the usual ending for newly named metallic elements, so "Copernicus" was given the same treatment as the older "curium" and "einsteinium." The formation is therefore a straightforward coinage: a surname plus a standard element suffix, applied to a synthetic element that exists only briefly in laboratories.