Question #2

Electron configuration is the arrangement of electrons of an atom, a molecule, or other physical structure. The form of the periodic table is closely related to the electron configuration of the atoms of the elements. By knowing the electron configuration of an atom, a person can find the element they are searching for on the periodic table or vice versa. Niels Bohr was the first to propose in 1923 that the periodicity in the properties of the elements might be explained by the electronic structure of the atom. His proposals were based on the then current Bohr model of the atom, in which the electron shells were orbits at a fixed distance from the nucleus.
Each individual element has its own frequency of wavelengths. Spectroscopy was originally the study of the interaction between radiation and matter as a function of wavelength. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any measurement of a quantity as a function of either wavelength or frequencey. When an individual chemical is burned, it gives off certain wavelenths of light. These wavelengths can be viewed with a spectroscope. By measuring the wavelenths, scientists are able to conceive which element they are studying.
A new element, Ununseptium, has recently been discovered. "Parts of the discovery were made inside a particle accelerator in Dubna, Russia, during the time frame 2009-2010, when new element 117 was synthesized in the collision of isotopes of calcium and radioactive element berkelium: in the reaction 249Bk + 48Ca. Other aspects of the discovery was made in the United States--at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California), the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oakridge, Tennessee), Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee), and the University of Nevada (Las Vegas); and in Russia--at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (Dimitrovgrad). (Ununseptium (pronounced: oon-oon-SEPT-i-em) stands for "one-one-seven-ium")."- William Atkins (IWIRE)