It All Depends on What Your Definition of Element Is

I really don't want to come off sounding like one of those "but what's the use of that" science-bashing philistines, but this is pushing it.

All right, let's back up a bit.

According to the BBC, element 112 has been approved for inclusion in the Periodic Table. (Yay!)

As with almost all of "these messy transuranics"¹, this element is very short-lived -- it has to be created by smashing other atoms together, it lasts only a few milliseconds before decaying, and its fleeting existence must be determined from the energy released by the decay process. (No prob.)

Here's my problem.

So far, since the first experiment a decade ago, four atoms of element 112 have been been observed.

Four atoms.

Observed over the course of ten years. For a combined total lifetime of about a hundredth of a second.

I'm all for doing this sort of science, but somehow … granting a full slot on the Periodic Table for this? When poor Pluto is banished from the list of planets and Shoeless Joe Jackson can't get into the Hall of Fame?

There is no official name yet. Its temporary name is "ununbium," which is "one one two" in some kind of wise Latin. But given that it's exceedingly rare and prone to vanish almost instantly, I propose we call it Republicanethicsium.

(h/t: Gerry Canavan, egotist)

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[1] I could have sworn I read somewhere that Niels Bohr used this phrase, but the Google says no.²

[2] And by corollary from the familiar Law: If it's not on the Internet, it must not be true.