Meitnerium is a synthetic chemical element named after Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner.
Core Principles & Analysis
Meitnerium was discovered at GSI Darmstadt in 1982, when Armbruster and Muenzenberg's team detected a single atom produced by fusing iron-58 with bismuth-209.
It honors Lise Meitner, co-discoverer of nuclear fission who was passed over for the Nobel Prize, and is the only element named solely for a non-mythological woman.
Its longest-lived known isotope, meitnerium-278, survives only a few seconds, and no chemistry experiment on meitnerium has yet been possible.