Rutherfordium: historical information

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Rutherfordium was discovered by Workers at the Nuclear Institute at Dubna, and the University of California, Berkeley, USA. at 1964 in USSR, United States. Origin of name: the origin of the Amercian Chemical Society preferred name is Lord "Rutherford", the physicist and chemist from New Zealand.

During 1964, scientists at Dubna in Russia claimed discovery of element 104 and suggested the name Kurchatovium and symbol Ku for the element, in honour of Igor Vasilevich Kurchatov (1903-1960), the late Head of Soviet Nuclear Research. Their experiments involved the collision reactions between 242Pu and 22Ne ions. In 1969 an American group at Berkeley (California) in the USA reported isotopes of Element 104. Their experiments involved reaction high energy collisions between 249Cf and 12C. The American group also indicated that they were unable to reproduce the earlier Russian synthesis from1964. The American group proposed for the new element the name Rutherfordium (symbol Rf), in honour of Ernest R. Rutherford, the New Zealand physicist. Rutherfordium is now the preferred IUPAC name.

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