Saturday, October 19, 2019

Eyjasundefni (protactinium)

Protactinium has an unique position on the periodic system of respresenting a strait in the, in nuclear physics called "sea of instability" between two elements that have much more stable isotopes, the so-called primordial nuclides: Th-232 and U-235 and U-238.  The compound "eyjasund" (straight between two islands: ey (island, genitive plural eyja- (islands-) + sund occurs in the old icleandic liteature, nl, the Egilssaga and the Formannsögur. I first thought of the compound "eyjasundbly" (I'm using a stem-compound between "eyjasund" and "efni" instead of a "genitive compound" (eyjasundSblý), because "eyjasund" designates an inherent property of the element, instead of  a geographical location or a type-locality, like in mineralogy.
So the names for protactinium could be: Lísublý (Lizlead (named after Lise Meitner, who discovered the element) or "Eyjasundefni" (isle-strait-element) or "Eyjasundblý" (isle-strait lead)


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