What Is a Molecule?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 21 May 2025 17:15:41 +0000

Surveys reveal that only 50 percent of people questioned know that the Earth goes around the sun once a year, and only 40 percent realize that electrons are smaller than atoms. That’s sad enough, but it is frightening that a mere 10 percent of the population understands what a molecule is. This is distressing, because everything in the physical world depends upon molecular action.

Copernicium

OSS — Wed, 31 May 2017 14:26:23 +0000

We can now add the newest element to the periodic table. It has been named Copernicium in honour of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish astronomer who first hypothesized that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Don’t expect to have a bottle of it on a shelf though. Copernicium does not occur in nature, it is made in the lab by bombarding lead-208 nuclei with zinc-70 nuclei and has only a fleeting existence. The element has no practical use but its synthesis provides information that can improve our understanding of atomic structure.