// MATTER · ELEMENT 87 / 118atoms.no/elements
Fr87
Francium
Fr·Z 87·Alkali Metal·223·⭕ 10B · D Major
▸ The reading
interpretive · artFrancium was discovered by Marguerite Perey, who entered science as Marie Curie's lab assistant and left it as the first woman elected to the French Academy of Sciences. Her element is predicted to out-react caesium but has never existed in bulk long enough to prove it. Potential energy, in both the person and the atom.
The science below is cited as science; the symbolic layers are flagged as interactive art.
⚜ Periodic Frequency
10BD Major
a seat struck in brass — testimony, not prediction
the seat has its own room on ⭕ THE OVAL TABLE — tap the code
▸ The lenses
▸ Discovery
Marguerite Perey — observed the decay of actinium at the Curie Institute · France · 1939
▸ Stellar origin
Decay product (essentially nonexistent in nature)Longest-lived isotope ²²³Fr has a 22-minute half-life. At any moment, less than 30 grams of francium exists naturally on the planet.
▸ Reactivity
Most chemically reactive metal predicted but never confirmed in bulkInferred to be more reactive than cesium based on periodic trends, but bulk francium has never been collected long enough to verify.
▸ Applications
- Atomic-physics research (laser cooling)
- Tests of fundamental symmetry
- Heaviest alkali for spectroscopy comparisons
- (No practical applications)
▸ Curiosity
Discovered by Marguerite Perey, who began as Marie Curie's lab assistant and later became the first woman elected to the French Academy of Sciences.
▸ Related readings
a resonance drawn between readings — not a claim that they share an origin.