Tuesday, March 15, 2016

How much chemistry (history) does C&EN know?

Yesterday I saw a link to a chemistry history quiz by C&EN magazine and I decided to take it. The second question asks the first "human made" element and the answer according to C&EN is plutonium which is WRONG.

 the screenshot from the related quiz question and answer
 
Assuming that they really are asking the first synthetic element, I guess every chemist (apparently except the one prepared the quiz) can tell you that technetium is the first synthetic element, hence the name. I am not sure if C&EN is bothered to learn the truth, but there you go people. 

I am not sure if I am missing something, but it's hard to believe that they got this fact wrong. Please correct me if I am wrong.

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