[ruhth-er-fawr-dee-uh
m, -fohr-] 
[yoo-nil-kwod-ee-uhm] | Chemistry, Physics. provisional name for the transuranic element with atomic number 104. Symbol: Unq |
| ruth·er·for·di·um (rŭth'ər-fôr'dē-əm, -fōr'-) n. Symbol Rf An artificially produced radioactive element with atomic number 104 whose most long-lived isotopes have mass numbers of 253, 255, 257, and 259 with half-lives of 1.8, 1.6, 4.7, and 3.4 seconds, respectively. See Table at element. [After Ernest Rutherford.] |
rutherfordium (rŭ 'ər-fôr'dē-əm) Pronunciation Key
Symbol Rf A synthetic, radioactive element that is produced by bombarding plutonium with carbon or neon ions. Its most stable isotope is Rf 261 with a half-life of 62 seconds. Atomic number 104. See Periodic Table. |
rutherfordium
an artificially produced radioactive transuranium element in Group IVb of the periodic table, atomic number 104. Soviet scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia, U.S.S.R., announced in 1964 the discovery of element 104, which they named kurchatovium, symbol Ku (for Igor Kurchatov, a Soviet nuclear physicist). In 1969, a group of American researchers at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley announced that they had identified isotopes of the element, different from the one identified by the Soviets; the Americans then proposed the name rutherfordium, in honour of the British physicist Ernest Rutherford
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