What is Meitnerium?
Meitnerium is a metallic chemical element classified among the transactinides on the periodic table of elements. Like other transactinide elements, meitnerium is among the heaviest of chemical elements, and it is both extremely unstable and radioactive. Because this element is so unstable, it cannot be found in nature; researchers who wish to work with it must synthesize it in a laboratory by bombarding other elements in a linear accelerator. Given the fact that only a few atoms of this element can be produced at a time, there are no commercial uses for meitnerium. In addition to being classified as a transactinide, meitnerium is also considered a transuranic element, which means that it has an atomic number higher than that of uranium. The existence of such elements was hypothesized at least as far back as the 1930s, with numerous physicists dedicating a great deal of time to the identification of such elements. Transuranic elements are notoriously unstable, however, making it difficu
