A Brief History
On February 9, 1996, the synthetic element, Copernicium, was discovered by a research team at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, named after the famous Polish astronomer and polymath, Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish), 10 days after the discovery, on the 537th anniversary of Copernicus’s birth.
Digging Deeper
Some of the other elements named after people include Curium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Einsteinium, Bohrium, Roentgenium, Lawrencium, and others. Perhaps you recognize some or most of these names as major historical scientists.
You might not appreciate a disease or disorder being named after you, but perhaps a majestic mountain or river, such as Mount McKinley or the Mackenzie River would flatter your self-esteem. How about the Napoleon pastry? The Jack Dempsey Cichlid fish?
A great building, such as the Chrysler Building is a monument to the early automobile tycoon, and of course Trump Tower is named by its owner as a monument to himself. Some universities and many university buildings are named after specific persons, and so are many cities or other places. The DeSoto automobile, made by Chrysler, was named after the Spanish explorer of the New World. Even “America” bears an origin with the name of Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer and navigator, and many places are named in honor of Christopher Columbus.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What would you like named after you?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Goble, Todd. Nicolaus Copernicus: And the Founding of Modern Astronomy. Morgan Reynolds Pub, 2003.
Repcheck, Jack. Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
The featured image in this article, a periodic table by OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
