Rutherfordium

History


Origin of name


Named after the chemist Ernest Rutherford [2]. From 1969 to 1997, there was a dispute whether to call the element rutherfordium or kurchatorium (Ku) after Igor Kurchatov the head of the Russian nuclear research programme [2]. The dispute was ended in 1997, when IUPAC decided on calling the element rutherfordium [1].