Death By Flowers

Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

Virgil had to give the element presentation today. He wasn't ready but the only reason he hadn't given it before was because he either had doctor appointments or Dev had been gone. Either way they were both there today which meant he had to give it today.

"Okay Dev, Virgil please come up here and give your presentation."

Virgil sighed and got up. He picked up his backpack and unzipped it, grabbing the paper and taking it to the front. Dev patted his shoulder as he stood by him. Dev put a large board giving all the basic information.

"Lutetium is a chemical element with the symbol Lu and atomic number 71. It is a silvery white metal, which resists corrosion in dry air, but not in moist air. Lutetium is the last element in the lanthanide series, and it is traditionally counted among the rare earths. Lutetium is sometimes considered the first element of the 6th-period transition metals, although lanthanum is more often considered as such.

"Lutetium was discovered in 1907 by French scientist Georges Urbain, Austrian mineralogist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, and American chemist Charles James. All of these researchers found lutetium as an impurity in the mineral ytterbia. The dispute on the priority of the discovery occurred shortly after, with Urbain and Welsbach accusing each other of publishing results influenced by the published research of the other; the naming honor went to Urbain, as he had published his results earlier. He chose the name lutetium for the new element, but in 1949 the spelling of element 71 was changed to lutetium. In 1909, the priority was finally granted to Urbain and his names were adopted as official ones; however, the name cassiopeia for element 71 proposed by Welsbach was used by many German scientists until the 1950s.

"Lutetium is not a particularly abundant element, although it is significantly more common than silver in the earth's crust. It has few specific uses. Lutetium-176 is a relatively abundant radioactive isotope with a half-life of about 38 billion years, used to determine the age of minerals and meteorites. Lutetium usually occurs in association with the element yttrium and is sometimes used in metal alloys and as a catalyst in various chemical reactions." Virgil sighed. His part was over.

"Lutetium dissolves readily in weak acids[12] and dilute sulfuric acid to form solutions containing the colorless lutetium ions, which are coordinated by between seven and nine water molecules, the average being." Virgil watched Dev speak with grace and without any stuttering. "Lutetium occurs on the Earth in the form of two isotopes: lutetium-175 and lutetium-176. Out of these two, only the former is stable, making the element monoisotopic. The latter one, lutetium-176, decays via beta decay with a half-life of 3.78×1010 years; it makes up about 2.5% of natural lutetium.[15] To date, 32 synthetic radioisotopes of the element have been characterized, ranging in mass from 149.973 to 183.961; the most stable such isotopes are lutetium-174 with a half-life of 3.31 years, and lutetium-173 with a half-life of 1.37 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 9 days, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than half an hour.[15] Isotopes lighter than the stable lutetium-175 decay via electron capture, with some alpha and positron emission; the heavier isotopes decay primarily via beta decay, producing hafnium isotopes.

The element also has 42 nuclear isomers, with masses of 150, 151, 153-162, 166-180 (not every mass number corresponds to only one isomer). The most stable of them are lutetium-177m, with a half-life of 160.4 days, and lutetium-174m, with a half-life of 142 days; these are longer than the half-lives of the ground states of all radioactive lutetium isotopes except lutetium-173, 174, and 176.

Lutetium, derived from the Latin Lutetia , was independently discovered in 1907 by French scientist Georges Urbain, Austrian mineralogist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, and American chemist Charles James. They found it as an impurity in ytterbia which was thought by Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac to consist entirely of ytterbium. The scientists proposed different names for the elements: Urban chaos neo ytterbium and lutetium, whereas Welsbach chose aldebaranium and cassiopeia. Both of these articles accused another man of publishing results based on those of the author.