#2 Jennifer Easley

Electron Configuration - Is the way that electrons are found an atom. Each electronin an atom is described by four different quantum numbers. Three of these quantum numbers (n, 1, and ) represent the three deminsions to space in which an electron could be found. A wave function for an electron gives the probability of finding the electron at various points in space. A wave function for an electron in an atom is called an atomic orbital. The fourth quantum number (ms) refers to a certain magnetic quality called spin. An example: Electron configuration of an atom is such that electrons fill the shell nearest the nucleus before filling others further away.

Spectroscopy - Spectroscopy pertains to the dispersion of an object's light into its component colors (energies). By performing this disection and analysis of an object's light, astronomers can infer the physical properties of that object (like temperatures, mass, luminostiy and compostion).



New Element - the name is copernium, after the 16-th century Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus. It is element 112 and ts symbol is Cn. Copernicium, a heavier relative of zinc, cadmuim and mercury, was first seen in 1996 by resesarchers at the Society for Heavy Ions Research in Darmstadt, Germany, after they bombarded a lead target with zinc ions.
It took the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which regulates nonmenclature, nearly 14 years to resolve disputes between the Germans and American researchers over who was first to produve the new element. In the March issue of the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry, the agency reported that the Germans had priority and were entitled to purpose a name.
Physicist Sigurd Hofmann, leader of the German team, said in a statement that it chose copernicium to "salute an influential scientist who didn't reciever any accolades in his own lifetime, and highlight the link between astronomy and the field of nuclear chemistry"
Copernicium was the first scientist to conclude that the planets of th solar system revolves around the sum rather than Earth.