62. Samarium - Elementymology & Elements Multidict

Elementymology & Elements Multidict

This site comprises 120 pages of text and photos, one for each element, and several pages for access. – For captions or explanatory texts move your mouse over illustrations, links etc.

62
Samarium
Samarium – Samarium – Samarium – Samário – サマリウム – Самарий – 釤
Sm
Multilingual dictionary

Indo-European
Samarium Latin

— Germanic
Samarium Afrikaans
Samarium Danish
Samarium German
Samarium English
Samarium Faroese
Samarium Frisian (West)
Samarín Icelandic
Samarium Luxembourgish
Samarium Dutch
Samarium Norwegian
Samarium Swedish

— Italic
Samario Aragonese
Samariumu Aromanian
Samariu Asturian
Samari Catalan
Samário Spanish
Samarium French
Samari Friulian
Samario Galician
Samario Italian
Samàri Lombard
Samari Occitan
Samário Portuguese
Samariu Romanian - Moldovan

— Slavic
Самарий [Samarij] Bulgarian
Samarij[um] Bosnian
Самарый [samaryj] Belarusian
Samarium Czech
Samarij Croatian
Samar Kashubian
Самариум [Samarium] Macedonian
Samar Polish
Самарий [Samarij] Russian
Samarium Slovak
Samarij Slovenian
Самаријум [Samarijum] Serbian
Самарій [samarij] Ukrainian

— Baltic
Samaris Lithuanian
Samārijs Latvian
Samaris Samogitian

— Celtic
Samariom Breton
Samariwm Welsh
Samairiam Gaelic (Irish)
Samairiam Gaelic (Scottish)
Samaarium Gaelic (Manx)
Samaryum Cornish

— Other Indo-European
Σαμαριο [samario] Greek
Սամարիում [samarium] Armenian
Samarium[i] Albanian

— Indo-Iranian/Iranian
Samaryûm Kurdish
Самарий [samarij] Ossetian
Самарий [Samari'] Tajik

— Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan
সামারিয়াম [sāmāriẏāma] Bengali
ساماریم [samarym] Persian
સમૅરિયમનો [sameriyamano] Gujarati
सैमरियम [saimariyama] Hindi

Finno-Ugric
Samaarium Estonian
Samarium Finnish
Szamárium Hungarian
Самарий [Samarij] Komi
Самарий [Samarij] Mari
Самари [samari] Moksha
Samaarium Võro

Altaic
Samarium Azerbaijani
Самари [Samari] Chuvash
Самарий [samarij] Kazakh
Самарий [Samarij] Kyrgyz
Самари [samari] Mongolian
Samaryum Turkish
چالغا [çalğa] Uyghur
Samariy Uzbek

Other (Europe)
Samarioa Basque
სამარიუმი [samariumi] Georgian

Afro-Asiatic
ساماريوم [samaryūm] Arabic
סמריום [samarium] Hebrew
Samarju[m] Maltese

Sino-Tibetan
Sân (釤) Hakka
サマリウム [samariumu] Japanese
사마륨 [samaryum] Korean
ซาแมเรียม [sāmaeriam] Thai
Samari Vietnamese
[shan4 / saam1] Chinese

Malayo-Polynesian
Samaryo Cebuano
Samarium Indonesian
Samarium Māori
Samarium Malay

Other Asiatic
സമേറിയം [samēṟiyam] Malayalam
சமேரியம் [camēriyam] Tamil

Africa
Samalu Lingala
Samariamo Sesotho
Samari Swahili

North-America
Samario Nahuatl

South-America
Samaryu Quechua

Creole
Samarimi Sranan Tongo

Artificial
Samario Esperanto

New names
Samarion Atomic Elements
Yellomagnium Dorseyville
memory peg

Gray-white metal
melting point 1077 °C; 1971 °F
boiling point 1791 °C; 3256 °F
density 7.52 g/cc; 469.46 pounds/cubic foot
1879 François Lecoq de Boisbaudran, France
samarskite, mineral named after Â.Å. Ñàìàðñêèé-Áûõîâåö (V.E. Samarskij-Byhovec)

History & Etymology

In 1839, the German mineralogist Gustav Rose (17981873) described a dense, black mineral with high luster, similar to ytterbite (later gadolinite, cf. Yttrium), which was found near Miass (Chelyabinsk region) in the Il'menskeye mountains (Southern Ural). He named it uranotantal (уранотантал). Seven years later, in 1846, the Moscow chemist R. I. Herman renamed this mineral ittro-ilmenit (иттроильменит), since, in his opinion, it contained a new element Ilmenium. Later, the research of C. W. Blomstrand and others, especially of Marignac, proved that Ilmenium was a mixture of Niobium and Tantalum (cf. Niobium).

In his analysis of "uranotantal", Heinrich Rose (1795-1864), professor of chemistry in Berlin and brother of Gustav Rose, found that there was no Tantalum present, but Niobium. Therefore both proposed names for the name mineral were incorrect. In his conclusion, Rose wrote in 1847:

«Я предлагаю изменить название уранотантал в самарскит, в честь полковника Самарского, по благосклонности которого я был в состоянии производить над этим минералом все изложенные наблюдения»

[translation: I propose to change name uranotantalum into samarskite, in honour of Colonel Samarskij, on benevolence of whom I was able to get this mineral and to analyze it]. (note)


The new earths in samarskite etc.

In 1878-80 finding new elements in samarskite was a hot issue under chemists. Several of their reports are found in the weekly Comptes rendus of the French Académie des sciences:

  1. 22 July 1878: the American chemist J. Lawrence Smith (1818-1883), researching samarskite found in North-Carolina, announced a new element, which he named Mosandrum, honouring the Swedish chemist Carl Gustav Mosander (note).

    22 October 1878: Delafontaine reports that Mosandrum does not exist (note).
    28 October 1878: Delafontaine affirmed mosandra to be identical with terbia (see his table at Terbium) (note).
    In 1886 Lecoq de Boisbaudran proved mosandra was a mixture or Terbium and Marignac's Yα (Holmium).

  2. 14 October 1878: the French chemist Marc Delafontaine (1837-1911), working in Chicago, wrote that he worked for two years research with samarskite, and has found a fourth new earth, which he named Philippium, after the chemist and physician Philippe Plantamour (1816-1898) of Geneva, his benefactor, friend and student of Berzelius, who translated his yearly reports (note). But, because his laboratory is destroyed in the great fire of Chicago he was not able to continue his research.

    Later, Philippium was thought to be identical with Holmium.

  3. 22 October 1878: Marignac reported the discovery of Ytterbium (note).

  4. 28 October 1878: Delafontaine reports another new metal found in samarskite from North Carolina, this time he gave this element the name Decipium, after the Latin "decipiens", which means "deceptive, misleading" (note). According to Delafontaine, samarskite contains the earths yttria, erbia, terbia, philippia, decipia, thoria, didymia, and ceria.

    16 August 1880: after spectroscopical analysis, Soret found that Decipium was identical with Lecoq's Samarium (note). Later was shown that Decipium was a mixture of Samarium and other rare-earth elements, mainly Neodymium and Praseodymium.

  5. 28 July 1879: François Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912) analyzed samarskite and noted that another earth precipitated before Didymia when ammonium hydroxide was added. Spectral analysis showed two new blue lines, different from the lines of Decipium. Lecoq called the new earth Samaria after its mineral source. The name for the element within became Samarium. (note). To Vasilij Evgrafovič Samarskij-Byhovec, a rather unknown person, went the honour of being the first individual to give his name to a chemical element.

    Despite the suggested chemical symbol of Sm, until the 1920s often Sa was used (note). Later was shown that Lecoq's Samarium was a mixture of Samarium and Europium. Eugène-Anatole Demarçay (1852-1904) separated it in 1901.

  6. 19 April 1880: Marignac reports that he has separated two new earths from samarskite. He indicated them provisionally with and (note).

    16 August 1880: after spectroscopical analysis, Soret found that Yβ was identical with Samarium (note). In 1886 Lecoq de Boisbaudran produced a more pure form of Yα and named it Gadolinium.

Via spectroscopical analysis Sir William Crookes described in 1886 an element Sδ, which later proved to be Samarium. All these discoveries of new elements within a few years caused some comments of unbelief. That of the science editor of the American magazine the Manufacturer and builder, published July 1880, is on the Rare Earths page.

V.E. Samarskij-Byhovec
Василий Евграфович Самарский-Быховец (Vasilij Evgrafovič Samarskij-Byhovec, also Samarsky-Bykhovets, von Samarski) (7 November 1803 - 31 May 1870). Belonging to the nobility of Tomsk province, he graduated from the Mountain Cadet Corps and served in Kolyvan-Resurrection plants. Some time later he was transferred to St. Petersburg, where he served as an assistant-manager at the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty, chief clerk of the Mountain Department, senior aide and the staff officer Corps of Mining Engineers. In 1845 he was promoted to colonel and became Chief of Staff of the Corps of Mining Engineers. In 1855 he was appointed chairman of the Mountain auditoriata (while remaining Chief of Staff). In 1861 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Corps of Mining Engineers (later - the Mining Council), as well as chairman of the Commission on the Revision of the Mining Charter. He granted Rose to study the samples of the black Ural mineral (note).

Other names
John and Gordon Marks suggested in 1994 the name Odinium (Od), after Odin, in the Norse mythology the supreme god of war and poetry, knowledge, and wisdom (cf. plutonium after Pluto) and for its tyrian (purple) coloured salts. The Marks brothers found the old names ugly and confusing. They offered alternative names that are equivalent contemporary (at the time and place of discovery) metaphors, both more euphonious and more memorable (note).

Further reading
  • Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
  • Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).
  • Editor's Scientific Record. Harper's new monthly magazine Vol. 58, No. 345, February 1879, p. 472 (on-line)

Sources Index of Persons Index of Alleged Elements