The Element Of Surprise: Japan's Periodic Identity Crisis

The Element Of Surprise: Japan's Periodic Identity Crisis
chemistry-memes, periodic-table-memes, elements-memes, nihonium-memes, linguistics-memes | ScienceHumor.io

This is peak chemistry nerd humor with a dash of linguistics! The meme creates fictional elements "Japanium (Jp)" and "Nihonium (Nh)" with atomic number 113 to make a brilliant point about exonyms versus endonyms. In reality, element 113 is actually called Nihonium (Nh), named after "Nihon" - what Japanese people call their own country (日本, literally "sun-origin"). The Japanese scientists who discovered it in 2004 specifically chose this name when it was officially recognized in 2016. So the periodic table secretly contains this linguistic lesson! The atomic mass of 286 is correct too - someone did their homework on this one!

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