Four New Elements Named To Append Traditional Periodic Chart,

When the periodic table comes to mind, it calls to mind the years that most people experience during Chemistry classes. To brush up a bit on how the periodic table came about, it was Dmitri Mendeleev who published the first widely recognized reference back in 1869.

Everyone is familiar with the usual chemical elements which were ordered according to their atomic number, electron configurations and recurring chemical properties and now four new elements are on the verge of being added.

The four new elements are nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts) and oganesson (Og). Prior to be given their official names, the four elements were known only through their respective numbers (113, 115, 117 and 118).

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has accepted the proposed names but all will still need to undergo the traditional five-month probation period before they are made official.

The new element names will undergo a public review and should no objections arise, they will get formal approval. The probation period for the four new elements expires on November 8, 2016.

A quick backgrounder on the four new elements

The impending addition of the four new elements will mean that scientists and students will have to update their reference periodic chart soon. But one thing that many may be asking is how these four new elements came to be.

First off, the four elements are not found in nature. They are all synthetically created in laboratories and are known to decay quickly.

Element 113 is the first discovered in an Asian country (Japan) and researchers used this as a basis to propose “Nihon” (Nh) as its name which can either mean "Japan" or "Land of Rising Sun." The element was discovered by a team at RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science and led by professor Kosuke Morita.

For the three other elements (115, 117, and 118), a Russian-American team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California are credited to its discovery.

Hence, element 115 was named “Moscovium”(Mc), 117 as “Tennessine” (Ts) and “Oganesson” (Og) at 118.

“Tennessine” inherits its name from the state of Tennessee which has been known for its pioneering research in chemistry. It also becomes the second state to be included in the table, the first one of which was California (“Californium” or element 98).

“Oganesson” on the other hand is in reference to an 83-year-old Russian physicist, Yuri Oganessian. The element marks only the second time that an element was named after a living scientist.

“Moscovium” got its name from the Russian capital city. This element was a result of researchers using a Dubna Gas-Filled Recoil Separator at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research along with the heavy ion accelerator capabilities at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.