Meaning & use
roentgenium
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Meaning
noununcountablechemistry
A man-made, very unstable chemical element with atomic number 111 and the symbol Rg, made only in tiny amounts in laboratories.
Grammar: Used without an or the plural, like most element names: roentgenium is radioactive.
Patterns
- an isotope of roentgenium
- roentgenium atom
Scientists first made roentgenium in 1994 by smashing nickel atoms into bismuth.
Roentgenium has no practical uses, and only a few atoms have ever been produced.
Even its longest-lived known isotopes last only seconds or minutes.
Common combinations
- isotope of roentgenium
- An isotope of roentgenium decays in seconds.
- synthesize roentgenium
- Researchers used a particle accelerator to synthesize roentgenium.
- roentgenium atoms
- Only a handful of roentgenium atoms have ever been detected.
- element 111
- Roentgenium is also called element 111.
- named after Röntgen
- The element was named after the physicist Wilhelm Röntgen.
Synonyms and how they differ
- Rg
- Rg is the chemical symbol, used in formulas and tables, while roentgenium is the full written name.
- element 111
- Element 111 identifies it by atomic number, which was how scientists referred to it before it had a name.
- unununium
- Unununium was the temporary systematic name used before the official name was chosen, and it is now obsolete.
Word family
- roentgen noun
- an older unit for measuring exposure to X-rays and gamma rays
- roentgenology noun
- an older word for the study of X-rays in medicine
- roentgenogram noun
- an older word for an X-ray image
- Röntgen noun
- the surname of the German physicist who discovered X-rays
Commonly confused: roentgenium or roentgen?
roentgenium vs roentgen
The roentgen is an old unit of radiation exposure, while roentgenium is a chemical element named in honor of the same scientist.
Practice
Roentgenium is named in honor of which scientist?
Choose one answer.
The element honors Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays. Curie, Bohr, and Mendeleev have elements named after them too (curium, bohrium, mendelevium), which makes them tempting wrong answers.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “roentgenium”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.