transfermium

As the transfermium wars continued, an irony emerged: atomic researchers were chasing immortality through the discovery of elements that quickly blinked out of existence.

In a period now called the “transfermium wars,” the cycle of discovery and doubt became the leitmotif of Cold War element research.

Though this round of naming seems to have gone off without a hitch, other dramatic battles over element names have been waged in the past, from the hundred-year-long battle over the element now called niobium to the Transfermium Wars of the 1960s.