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So this is a very, very special sample of lutetium. Again from the bottom
end of the periodic table, the lanthanides, and you can see it’s a really
quite beautiful metallic foil here.
So lutetium is the last of the 4f lanthanide series and it’s also used for
dating meteorites.
And, it’s a very small sample. It weighs a few milligrams but it’s a very,
very nice sample, stirred under an inert atmosphere so that we can
control the chemistry, so it’s full of un-reactive argon so we can’t form
the oxide.
Lutetium, although it might not be obvious to you, is named after a
European capital city.
Lutetium is also used in radionucleotide treatment for cancers so it’s got
a very useful role.
And, in fact, it’s named after Paris as Lutetia was the Roman name for
Paris, when it was a Roman city, and therefore lutetium is one of the few
elements that is named after a city. Some of the other, rarer, are
named after cities in Sweden, but lutetium is the one that is most easily
recognisable, at least by people like me, who had to learn Latin when we
were children.
Like thulium it is very expensive so we save it for special occasions.
When we know that something will absolutely work for sure then we will
try it with lutetium.