Take a look at the first column of the periodic mesa . The ingredient in this group admit some of the most vulgar and useful 1 on the planet - and they likely all care they were n’t associated with francium .
Sitting at the bottom of this row of chemical workhorse , this spectacularlyradioactiveelement would betoxicto anyone who come near it , if only it could terminate itself from vanishing . In fact , it’sestimatedthat there ’s never more than about 28 gm ( 1 ounce ) of the hooey in Earth ’s crust at any given time , and no one has ever make do to obtain a weighable measure of the subtle metal , let alone see it .
So while other alkali metalsplay key partsin important material such asbatteriesand cellular outgrowth , francium has absolutely no known USA and does n’t come out to play any biological function . It ’s so rarified and short - live on that scientists who want to meditate the element have to create their own by bombarding radium with neutrons or thorium with protons .
For many years , the very existence of Fr was a topic of speculation . It was Dmitri Mendeleev - the father of theperiodic table- who first theorized that there might be an undiscovered alkali metallic element lurking somewhere in the universe with an atomic number of 87 . This trigger off a frantic and highly private-enterprise quest to pick up the hypothetic element , with numerous prominent scientist claiming to have found it , only to subsequently have their result disproven .
As it happens , the metal ’s only of course - occurring isotope - francium-223 -forms duringthe radioactive decay of atomic number 89 . In 1939 , it was notice for the very first time by a French char named Marguerite Perey who work with atomic number 89 at the Institut du Radium in Paris and had once service asMarie Curie ’s personal assistant .
What had previously been known just as “ constituent 87 ” was afterwards rename " francium " in award of Perey ’s home plate country , which also lends its name to the element gallium .
Observations made after its discovery expose that francium-223 has ahalf - lifeof just 22 minutes , which have in mind it takes this long for half of the atoms in a sample of francium to decompose . For context , uranium-235- a radioactive isotope used to fuel atomic powerfulness plants - has a half - life of around700 million years .
sacrifice how radioactive it is , one can only reckon the havoc that francium could make for on the human trunk . Fortunately , there ’s so small of the stuff around that you do n’t have to vex ( unless you happen to work out with it ) .
