Crystals of pure gallium
15 September 2023
Gallium is a soft, silvery metal with atomic number 31 and the symbol Ga. The metal is widely used in electronics. Its name arises out of nationalist pride, a fit of egomania, or more likely both.
Gallium’s existence was predicted in 1871 by chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, the inventor of the periodic table, by its position on that table, and he provisionally dubbed the element eka-alumini. Mendeleev coined the combining form eka- from the Sanskrit meaning “one.” Gallium sits one place below aluminum on the periodic table. Eka- has subsequently been used to denote elements whose predicted existence has yet to be experimentally confirmed.
The existence of gallium was demonstrated in 1875 by French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran through spectroscopy, making it the first discovery of an element predicted by the periodic table. It was Lecoq who gave it the name gallium:
Les experiences que j’ai exécutées depuis le 29 août me confirment dans le pensée que le corps observé doit ètre considéré comme un nouvel élément, auquel je propose de donner le nom de Gallium.
(The experiments that I have performed since 29 August confirm my thought that the observed body must be considered as a new element, to which I propose to give the name of Gallium.)
Lecoq claimed to have named it after his native France, or Gallia in Latin. Others have claimed he named it after himself; gallus is rooster or cock in Latin. Lecoq specifically denied this eponymous etymology, but it seems likely that he created the name with the dual meaning in mind.
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Sources:
Lecoq de Boisbaudran, Paul Emile. “Caractères chimiques et spectroscopiques d’un nouveau métal, le gallium, découvert dans une blende de la mine de Pierrefitte, vallée d’Argelès (Pyrénées).” Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences, 81, 20 September 1875, 493–95 at 494. Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements: Part 2—Turbulent Nineteenth Century.” Foundations of Chemistry, 8 December 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09451-w.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. gallium, n., eka-, comb. form.
Sztejnberg, Aleksander. “Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834 - 1907), prominente científico ruso. Referencias a sus grandes logros científicos en la literatura entre 1871 y 1917” (“Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834 – 1907), Prominent Russian Scientist. References to His Great Scientific Achievements in the Literature between 1871 and 1917.”) Revista CENIC Ciencias Quimicas. 49, 2018, 1-13. EBSCOhost Academic Search Ultimate.
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