Quizzes · Knowledge
Quizzes · Knowledge
Type each element name from oldest to newest. Each of the 106 dated clues is shown in the table; the active target is highlighted.
106 questions96 playsupdated Oct 16, 2026
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| Discovery clue | Element |
|---|---|
| 1669: Brandt condensed glowing vapour while heating the residue from urine | — |
| 1739: Brandt published evidence that a blue-ore component was a distinct metal | — |
| 1746: Marggraf prepared and reported a metal from calamine in Europe | — |
| 1751: Cronstedt extracted an unfamiliar metal from the mineral now called nickeline | — |
| 1753: Geoffroy proved that a familiar heavy metal was distinct from lead | — |
| 1755: Black distinguished magnesia from lime as a different chemical earth | — |
| 1766: Cavendish showed that the flammable gas he collected was distinct from other gases | — |
| 1772: Rutherford's doctoral thesis argued that a residual gas from air was an element | — |
| 1774: Priestley published his account of a gas that made candles burn more brightly | — |
| 1774: Scheele produced a choking greenish-yellow gas from acid and pyrolusite | — |
| 1774: Gahn isolated the metal from the black ore pyrolusite | — |
| 1781: Hjelm produced a metal by heating an oxide-derived acid with carbon | — |
| 1783: Müller identified a new component of Transylvanian gold ore | — |
| 1783: the Elhuyar brothers reduced an ore-derived oxide to metal | — |
| 1789: Klaproth obtained a new oxide while analysing zircon | — |
| 1789: Klaproth identified a new element through a yellow oxide from pitchblende | — |
| 1791: Gregor inferred an unknown metal from black sand in Cornwall | — |
| 1791: Hope's study of the Strontian mineral proved it contained a new element | — |
| 1794: Gadolin announced an unknown earth in a black mineral from Ytterby | — |
| 1798: Vauquelin announced a new element from beryl and emerald | — |
| 1798: Vauquelin isolated a metal while analysing the red mineral crocoite | — |
| 1801: del Rio identified a new component in Mexican mineral samples | — |
| 1801: Hatchett inferred an unknown metal from a British Museum mineral | — |
| 1802: Ekeberg reported a new metal from a mineral later confused with niobium | — |
| 1803: Wollaston obtained a new metal from a rose-red salt in platinum solution | — |
| 1803: Wollaston extracted a metal from platinum and sold it as new silver | — |
| 1803: Berzelius and Hisinger identified a new component in cerite | — |
| 1803: Tennant separated a metal from platinum-ore residue whose compound had a pungent odour | — |
| 1803: Tennant separated a metal from platinum-ore residue whose salts showed many colours | — |
| 1807: Davy obtained metallic globules by passing current through caustic soda | — |
| 1807: Davy used electrolysis on moist potash and obtained a reactive new metal | — |
| 1808: Paris and London chemists independently prepared an impure new element from borax | — |
| 1808: Davy isolated a metal from lime through a mercury amalgam | — |
| 1808: Davy isolated a metal by electrolysing its hydroxide | — |
| 1811: Courtois saw purple vapour rise when he added acid to seaweed ash | — |
| 1817: Arfvedson recognized an unknown alkali metal while analysing petalite | — |
| 1817: Berzelius identified a new element in sediment from a sulfuric-acid works | — |
| 1817: Stromeyer traced discoloured zinc oxide to an unknown metal | — |
| 1824: Berzelius prepared relatively pure powder by reducing potassium fluorosilicate | — |
| 1825: Ørsted prepared an impure metal by heating its chloride with potassium | — |
| 1826: Balard sent an account of the orange-red liquid he released from brine | — |
| 1829: Berzelius extracted and confirmed a new metal from thorite | — |
| 1839: Mosander separated a new oxide from a sample thought to be cerium | — |
| 1843: Mosander announced a yellow oxide separated from yttria | — |
| 1843: Mosander separated a rose-pink oxide from yttria | — |
| 1844: Claus reported a confirmed new metal from platinum-ore residues | — |
| 1860: Kirchhoff and Bunsen found unfamiliar spectral lines in mineral water | — |
| 1861: Bunsen and Kirchhoff used two ruby-red spectral lines to confirm a new alkali metal | — |
| 1861: Crookes reported an unfamiliar green spectral line in an acid sample | — |
| 1863: Reich and Richter recognized an unexpected violet spectral line in zinc ore | — |
| 1868: a new yellow line in the Sun's spectrum revealed an unknown element | — |
| 1875: a violet spectral line in zinc-blende ore led Boisbaudran to a new metal | — |
| 1878: researchers in Geneva and Uppsala independently identified a rare earth | — |
| 1878: de Marignac obtained a white oxide while separating erbium-rich material | — |
| 1879: Nilson found the predicted missing element in the mineral euxenite | — |
| 1879: de Boisbaudran found a new rare earth through an unfamiliar spectrum | — |
| 1879: Cleve isolated a rare earth as its oxide from erbium-rich material | — |
| 1880: Marignac extracted a new rare earth from material called didymium | — |
| 1885: Auer split didymium and obtained the green-coloured component | — |
| 1885: Auer split didymium and obtained the bluish-lilac component | — |
| 1886: Moissan isolated the free element by electrolysing potassium bifluoride in liquid acid | — |
| 1886: Winkler identified the missing component of an unusual silver ore | — |
| 1886: de Boisbaudran isolated a new rare earth after many precipitations | — |
| 1894: Rayleigh and Ramsay isolated an unreactive gas left after removing air's reactive components | — |
| 1898: Ramsay and Travers isolated a lighter noble gas as solid argon evaporated | — |
| 1898: Ramsay and Travers isolated a heavier gas from liquefied argon | — |
| 1898: Ramsay and Travers isolated a heavy gas by repeated distillation of liquid air | — |
| July 1898: the Curies traced pitchblende's radioactivity to a fraction that followed bismuth during separation | — |
| December 1898: the Curies traced pitchblende's radioactivity to a barium-like fraction with a new spectral line | — |
| 1899: Debierne extracted a new radioactive element from pitchblende | — |
| 1900: Dorn observed a radioactive gas accumulating in sealed radium samples | — |
| 1901: Demarçay separated another rare earth by repeated crystallisation | — |
| 1907: Urbain first reported a new rare earth separated from ytterbium | — |
| 1913: Fajans and Göhring identified a short-lived radioactive element in uranium's decay chain | — |
| 1923: Coster and de Hevesy identified an element hidden in zircon | — |
| 1925: Noddack and Tacke isolated a rare metal from gadolinite | — |
| 1937: Segrè separated an artificial element from irradiated molybdenum | — |
| 1939: Perey inferred element 87 from purified actinium's unexplained radioactivity | — |
| 1940: Corson, MacKenzie and Segrè convincingly produced element 85 | — |
| 1940: McMillan and Abelson identified element 93 after neutron bombardment of uranium | — |
| 1940: Seaborg's Berkeley team first produced element 94 from irradiated uranium | — |
| 1944: Chicago researchers produced a new element by neutron bombardment of plutonium | — |
| 1944: a Berkeley cyclotron team made a new element by bombarding plutonium | — |
| 1945: Oak Ridge researchers separated element 61 from reactor fission products | — |
| 1949: Berkeley researchers made a new element by bombarding americium | — |
| 1950: Berkeley researchers produced about 5,000 atoms by bombarding curium | — |
| 1952: fallout from a thermonuclear test yielded an element identified within a month | — |
| 1953: analysts identified an element in debris from a 1952 thermonuclear test | — |
| 1955: a Berkeley team detected a new element after bombarding einsteinium | — |
| 1961: Berkeley reported element 103, for which its team later received discovery credit | — |
| 1963: Dubna's 1962-63 experiments established element 102 after disputed earlier claims | — |
| 1964: Dubna produced element 104 by bombarding plutonium with neon | — |
| 1968: Dubna reported element 105 after bombarding americium with neon | — |
| 1974: Dubna and Berkeley both reported new isotopes of element 106 | — |
| 1981: GSI supplied the more credible evidence for element 107 | — |
| 1982: GSI detected a single atom after bombarding bismuth with iron | — |
| 1984: GSI produced element 108 in an experiment judged more reliable | — |
| 1994: GSI produced element 110 with evidence later confirmed by others | — |
| 1994: GSI obtained atoms of element 111 by bombarding bismuth with nickel | — |
| 1996: GSI announced atoms of element 112 made by bombarding lead with zinc | — |
| 1999: Dubna's follow-up run produced more atoms of element 114 | — |
| 2000: Dubna researchers observed element 116 after earlier attempts failed | — |
| 2004: RIKEN began the studies later accepted for element 113 | — |
| 2006: the Dubna-Livermore collaboration began work later accepted for element 118 | — |
| 2010: the collaboration began work that IUPAC later accepted for element 115 | — |
| 2010: the collaboration began work that IUPAC later accepted for element 117 | — |
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Everyone in my chat is sweating this one.
Good for travel breaks.
Had to look up question 8 after.
Fun warmup with my coffee.
My nephew got 6, I got 4. Painful.