Nuclear physics · 1944–2022
Sigurd Hofmann
Hofmann worked at the GSI Helmholtz Center in Darmstadt on the velocity filter SHIP, which separates a recoiling fusion product from the intense beam that made it and delivers it to a detector within microseconds. That separation is what allows a single implanted atom to be watched as it decays. He wrote extensively on the evidential standards a discovery claim must meet, which mattered in a field where several claims had failed.
Explore the supporting references at the foot of this article.
Contribution & context
He led or took part in the discovery of six elements at GSI between 1981 and 1996 — bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, roentgenium and copernicium — each produced by cold and identified through correlated alpha-decay chains terminating in known nuclides.
nature.com — Bohriumasrc.jaea.go.jp — RutherfordiumRSC Periodic Table — Bohriummedia.iupac.org — Rutherfordiumrepository.gsi.de — Bohrium
Discoveries in context
The end of the seventh row ↗
Elements 104 to 118 were made a few atoms at a time, across a fifty-year competition between three laboratories, and completing the row required agreeing on what counts as proof.
Sources & further reading
- nature.com — Bohrium ↗nature.comReference explanation · Source checked
- asrc.jaea.go.jp — Rutherfordium ↗asrc.jaea.go.jpReference explanation · Source checked
- RSC Periodic Table — Bohrium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
- media.iupac.org — Rutherfordium ↗media.iupac.orgReference explanation · Source checked
- repository.gsi.de — Bohrium ↗repository.gsi.deReference explanation · Source checked
Sources and further reading. What the review labels mean