Georges Urbain

Who is Georges Urbain ?

How does Georges Urbain fit in with the number 72 ?

He was born in 1872 in Paris and became a top notch chemist and a Professor. Urbain had a passion for the arts and loved to paint, sculpt, and play music.

As a professional chemist he understood the existing atomic elements of the periodic table introduced by Mendeleev back in the 1800's. Georges Urbain and Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach are credited with co-discovering the element lutelium. Charles James is also associated to the isolation of this rare earth element.

Lutelium is a pure metal and belongs in space 71 of the periodic table of elements. It is also 71Lu.

Georges Urbain was the one who seperated lutetium from ytterbia ( yttterbium oxide ) in 1907.

Georges Urbain thought he had found element 72 also in 1907 and reported it to the scientific community as a rare earth metal. In his report in 2011 he called atomic number 72 Celtium. The scientific community tested out his claim and found that the spectra and chemical behaviour the Celtium did not match the true characteristics of an element that should fill in the 72 space. Hafnium discovered in 1923 fit that character. The scientists of this era were shifting from old school mineral analysis models to state of the art instruments like those used by Moseley when he was using X-ray spectroscopy to measure wavelengths. Not all scientists of this era trusted the new technology and the controversy over Celtium being element 72 dragged on for several years.

Georges Urbain taught thermodynamics at Sorbonne University in Paris.

One hundred and twenty years ago Georges Urbain was born, in Paris, on 12th

April. He was educated in Paris and graduated, as top student, in 1894. He obtained a DSc

iri 1898 with a thesis on the RE elements and from the same year to 1904 worked in

industry. He then followed his true vocation as a teacher, finally becoming professor of

chemistry at the Sorbonne, in 1908. His main research interests were in the field of RE

chemistry and he is best known for his discovery of lutecium and for his unsuccessful

attempts at isolating another RE metal which he hoped to call celtium. It was during these

researches that, in 1912 (three years before Honda’s landmark publication on

thermogravimetry) he converted an analytical balance into a thermobalance in order to

study materials which decomposed at a perceptible rate, with the evolution of a gas. He

established a law governing the efflorescence of hydrates in a dry atmosphere, carried out a few experiments on EGA but soon lost interest in thermogravimetry. - tmg newsletter

More....

Bohr and others who play a role in the isolation of element 72.
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Resource - Hafnium

Moseley predicts atomic number 72

This - Moseley predicts atomic number 72 - might be more interestesting if it were about James Moseley, the son of US Army Major General George van Horne Moseley, who was a ufologist and co-founder of Saucer News. However it isn't about that Moseley.

Henry Moseley predicts atonic number 72

Moseley Predicts Atomic Number 72 is about the physicist Henry Moseley who lived but 27 years between 1887 and 1915. Henry Gwyn Jeffrys Moseley was born in the United Kingdom. Henry Moseley gets his education through the Oxford system and graduates in 1910. From Oxford he goes to University of Manchester where he does graduate research under the wings of Sir Ernest Rutherford who is today recognized as the father of nuclear physics.

Henry Moseley measured chemical elements through X-Ray spectroscopy. Through his understanding of Bragg's difraction law and the pioneering technology of x-ray spectroscopy he discovers a pattern between wavelengths of X-rays and the atomic number of metals Moseley's law is the result of this discovery.

Back in the 1800's the Russian Mendeleev had invented the periodic table of elements and had predicted that certain elements would eventually be found and added to his chart. Moseley reworked the placement of a few existing elements on the Mendeleev chart. He also suggested that there were gaps or spaces in the periodic table that should identify yet unknown elements at 43, 61, 72 and 75. All of these spaces are now filled with  the discoveries of technetium, promethium, hafnium, and rhenium.

Hafnium was periodic table element 72 or 72HF and discovered in 1923.

While Mendeleev had lived to an average age of 72 years, Moseley unfortunately found his death while engaged in a war conflict in Turkey. He had discontinued his physics research and joined up with the Royal Engineers of the British Army. World War I had begun and he was an acting technical officer in communications. During the Battle of Galipoli, Henry Moseley was sending out a military order over the telephone when a sniper bullet planted itself in his head and wounded him fatally.

Moseley predicted atomic number 72 and most people agree that had he lived a longer life he would have won the Nobel Prize and many other awards. In his legacy the British Government enacted a policy of  never recruiting into action their prodigy subjects.

Mendeleev predicts the existence of an element that is heavier than titanium and zirconium.

Dmitri Mendeleev predicted the discovery of atomic number 72. Ironically enough he dies at the age of 72 several years before Hafnium is discovered and added to the periodic table of elements as 72HF.

Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Mendeleev was born in Siberia in 1834. His widowed mother ran a glass factory and the young Dmitri hung out with the factory chemist.

Mendeleev's philosophy of life as a youth can likely be summed up by this Mendeleev quote.

" We could live at the present day without a Plato, but a double number of Newton's is required to discover the secrets of nature, and to bring life into harmony with the laws of nature. "

He moves to Moscow with his mother Maria some time after the glass factory burns to the ground.  When he failed to enter the University in Moscow he moved on the St. Petersburg where he began to study to become a science teacher. Maria died shortly thereafter and Dmitri develops a serious illness that keeps him bedridden for a year or so. But he keeps to his studies from home and graduates first in his class. His masters thesis was called " Research and Theories of Substances due to the Heat. ".

He teaches science for a few years and pursues his studies of the periodic table and chemical technology. Another passion of his is the workings of  Russia's industries. In 1859 he is contracted by the Minister of Public Instruction to go on a sabbattical journey abroad and to return with greater knowledge of how others are doing in the fields of science and technology. In Paris, Mendeleev studies gases with Renault. In Germany he studies spectroscopy with Kirchoff.

Back in St. Petersburg he becomes Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and later he held the same title at the University. He earns a Doctorate degree after writing " On the Combinations of Water and Alcohol ". All the while Dr. Dmitri Mendeleev is contemplating the merits of the periodic charts.

His scientist and educator life was full of scholarly accomplishments yet is family life seemed to suffer a bit from his passions.

In 1869 he was ready to present his observations and descriptions of 60 elements to the Russian Chemical Society. The paper he'd prepared for this day was called " The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights and the Atomic Elements.". It was in this paper that he expressed, " We must expect the discovery of many yet unknown elements - for example - elements analogous to aluminium and silicon - whose atomic weight would be betwen 65 and 75. ".

A few years later Mendeleev's prediction begin to came to pass and add substanstially to his professional credential.

In 1923 Hafnium - atomic element 72 is discovered.

Dmitri Mendeleev stayed in St. Petersburg after retiring from the University of St. Petersburg.

He passed away at the age of 72 in 1907.     

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72 seems like a very average age to die.
The average heartbeat of an adult at rest is 72 beats per minute.
The amount of water in the body is 72 parts per 100.
A generation in ancient Egypt was 72 years.
......72 strange things ???????????????????????