日本獲113號元素命名權 打破歐美科研壟斷

Since the 19th century, European and American discoveries have monopolized the naming of elements on the periodic table. It is evident in entries like francium, germanium, scandium, polonium, europium, californium, berkelium and americium.

自19世紀以來，歐洲和美國的發現壟斷了對週期表中元素的命名。這一點在鈁、鍺、鈧、釙、銪、鐦、錇、鎇等元素的拉丁名上頗爲明顯。

But now, for the first time, researchers in Asia will make an addition to chemistry’s most fundamental catalog.

但現在，亞洲的研究人員將首次在化學領域最基本的目錄上增加一個條目。

Scientists from the Riken institute in Japan will bestow an official name on Element 113, currently known by the placeholder name ununtrium, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced last week.

國際純粹與應用化學聯合會(International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry)上週宣佈，日本理化學研究所(Riken)的科學家將擁有給第113號元素正式命名的權利。該元素目前暫被稱爲ununtrium。

The organization said that studies published by the Japanese scientists from 2004 to 2012 give the team the strongest claim to having discovered the element. The declaration comes more than 12 years after the Japanese team first attempted to synthesize the superheavy element, by firing beams of zinc at a thin bismuth film.

化學聯合會稱，這些日本科學家在2004到2012年間發表的研究論文，讓該團隊有最爲充分的理由宣稱是他們發現了該元素。這一認可距日本團隊首次嘗試合成這一超重元素已過去了逾12年。他們做法是朝一層薄薄的鉍膜發射鋅束。

Led by Kosuke Morita, the group began to bombard bismuth atoms in a particle accelerator at 10 percent the speed of light in 2003. A year later, they successfully fused two atomic nuclei from these elements, creating their first nucleus of Element 113, but it decayed in less than a thousandth of a second. In 2005, the team produced Element 113 in a second event, but the chemistry union did not consider the demonstration strong enough to denote a discovery.

2003年，該團隊在森田浩介(Kosuke Morita)的帶領下，開始在粒子加速器中以10%的光速轟擊鉍原子。一年後，他們成功地讓兩個元素的原子核聚變，創造出了他們的首個113號元素原子核，但過了不到千分之一秒，它就衰變了。2005年，該團隊第二次得到了第113號元素，但化學聯合會認爲並不足以證明發現了新元素。

“For over seven years, we continued to search for data conclusively identifying Element 113, but we just never saw another event,” Dr. Morita said in a statement. “I was not prepared to give up, however, as I believed that one day, if we persevered, luck would fall upon us again.”

“在七年多時間裏，我們持續尋找能不容置疑地證明第113號元素的數據，但再未成功過，”森田浩介在聲明中說。“但我沒準備放棄，因爲我相信，如果堅持不懈，總有一天好運會降臨在我們身上。”

In 2012, the team finally produced strong evidence that they had synthesized Element 113. Over the course of those nine years, the beam was active for 553 days and launched more than 130 quintillion zinc atoms, according to Nature.

在2012年，該團隊終於得出了有力的證據，表明他們合成了第113號元素。《自然》雜誌(Nature)稱，這九年裏，鋅束活躍了553天，發射的鋅原子數超過1.3乘以10的20次方。

The chemistry union, along with the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, granted the Riken researchers naming rights to Element 113 over a joint Russia-United States team that had also claimed to discover the element.

化學聯合會和國際純粹與應用物理學聯合會(International Union of Pure and Applied Physics)共同將第113號元素的命名權授予了理化學研究所的研究人員，而一支俄美聯合團隊抱憾。後者也聲稱發現了該元素。

The chemistry union’s decisions are detailed in two reports to appear in the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry. In addition to Element 113, Elements 115, 117 and 118 will also receive official names. Teams from Russia and the United States discovered those elements.

《純粹與應用化學》期刊(Pure and Applied Chemistry)上發表的兩份報告，詳細解釋了化學聯合會的決定。除第113號元素外，第115號、117號和118號元素也將被正式命名。這些元素由俄羅斯和美國的團隊分別發現。

With their discovery, the bottom row of the periodic table will be complete. Elements are numbered by the protons they have in their nucleus, and Elements 114 (flerovium) and 116 (livermorium) had previously been confirmed and named.

有了這些發現，元素週期表最下面一行將被填滿。元素的序號是根據其原子核內所含的質子數決定的。第114號元素鈇(flerovium)和116號元素鉝(livermorium)此前已得到證實並完成了命名。

Dr. Morita has not yet announced what he intends to name Element 113, but according to a 2004 article in The Japan Times when the team first published its results, one likely contender may be “japonium.”

森田浩介尚未宣佈打算給第113號元素起什麼名字，但從該團隊於2004年首次發表研究結果的時候《日本時報》(The Japan Times)當年刊登的一篇文章來看，其中一個很可能中選的拉丁名是“japonium”。