This scarce element is considered to be one of the last naturally occurring elements discovered on Earth. Because francium is so rare, scientists who want to study it first have to create it in ...

As it turns out, francium was one of the last natural elements to be discovered, and is the second rarest after astatine. Estimates of the abundance of francium suggest that there is only about 30 ...

with numerous prominent scientists claiming to have found it, only to later have their results disproven. As it happens, the metal’s only naturally-occurring isotope - francium-223 - forms ...

Mlle. Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute, Paris, discovered francium in 1939. It is the heaviest known member of the alkali metal series and occurs as a result of an alpha disintegration of ...

but in 1939 she announced that she had discovered element 87. Possibly taking her cue from Marie Curie, who had named polonium after her homeland, Perey called the element francium. Perey ...

But soon enough, a French woman named Marguerite Perey discovered the real Element 87 (née virginium) and named it francium. American teams did discover Element 85 (née alabamine) and Element 61 ...