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HIROSHIMA, HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE, HEAVENLY EMPIRE OF JAPAN
14:32 LOCAL TIME, NOVEMBER 04, 1785 AD
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Urahara Kisuke leaned over his desk and pressed his face to the rubber seal of the viewfinder. The room was dark except for a dull red tinted light and as the material pressed against his face, the sole source of normal light - that of the spectroscope in front of him - was cut off from the room. Shihōin Yoruichi glanced up from her paperwork and looked in his direction, before resuming her own tasks. They had been working at the problem for quite some time now. Chemistry was the big thing these days, and the race was on to fill in the Peridoic Table. Particularly, ever since the work of Dimitri Mendel (born of a German man and a Russian immigrant woman in the Holy Roman Empire) had been published some years prior, describing the attributes of elements missing from the current table, their isolation and discovery had become a prime target. They were predicted to have properties similar to the existing elements in their same column, and were prefixed variously to indicate how far down the column they were..
The government had expressed all kinds of interest in chemistry lately. Much of it was apparently in the realm of advancing pure science, such as what they were doing here, as there was ultimately only limited practical application to the results. The pair had a somewhat storied past; both were veterans of the First World War, and had met and become friends during the latter part of the campaign. In the postwar boom they had pursued their educations and now found themselves here, once more laboring for the government. It was, in a way, sort of strange. Kisuke tended to work with the machines, while Yoruichi tended to do the notekeeping. Her writing was better. Kisuke fiddled with the knobs on the machine, adjusting the height of the loaded sample to get it just right and watching the rainbow spectrum slide and distort across the measurement tick-marks. The sample today was sphalerite, also known as zinc blende. It was mostly composed of zinc sulfide crystals, but almost always contained iron too. It had occurred to various researchers it might contain other things too, and that was why they were looking at it. The room was quiet for what seemed a long while except for the scribbling noise of Yoruichi’s pencil, before Kisuke suddenly spoke up “Yoruichi-san, what has two strong violet spectrum lines?”
She blinked and again looked over at him, tapping her pencil against her chin as she mentally went through the characteristic spectra of elements. There was nothing with two strong violet spectrum lines. “Nothing that I know of,” she replied. Even through the dim red glow she could see a grin crack across Kisuke’s face beneath the viewfinder “Then I guess we’ve found something that does.”
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HIROSHIMA, HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE, HEAVENLY EMPIRE OF JAPAN
09:17 LOCAL TIME, DECEMBER 17, 1785 AD
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They had decided to call it “nihonium”, after Japan. It had been difficult to synthesize the metal in a free, elemental form until very recently, but today they were ready to present their findings. Kisuke gestured for Seta Noriyasu to take a seat. He was one of the members of the oversight committee for the project. “I take it you have something of notice at last, Uruhara-san,” he intoned. Kisuke played it cool and gestured for Yoruichi to turn on the overhead lights. The piece of equipment sitting on the table before Noriyasu became doubly illuminated. It was an assemblage of tubing, flasks, distillation tubes, and wires. It seemed haphazard. Noriyasu reviewed it for a moment before glancing at the two scientists “And?”
Kisuke smiled and turned a liquid release valve, allowing fluid to start flowing through the equipment. It took a little while, but it got going, while Kisuke explained “This is nihonium hydroxide in a potassium hydroxide solution; we’ve figured out how to isolate the material in its elemental form.”
Noriyasu tilted his head a little as he watched the darkly colored liquid pass through the various tubes. At one point an empty tube branched off, right after where the wires entered into a strange glass tank “How?”
Yoruichi pointed at the tank “If the solution undergoes electrolysis it separates out, producing hydrogen gas, potassium, and pure nihonium; just like electrolysis of water produces oxygen and hydrogen gases.”
Noriyasu nodded a little, as he was familiar enough with the basics to understand at least that. At the very end of the glassware array was a single beaker into which a fluid was slowly dripping. He considered it for a moment, before looking to Yoruichi and Kisuke “And what properties does it have when purified?”
Kisuke stepped away, going to a cabinet at one side of the room, while Yoruichi stated “It’s the equivalent of what Dimitri Mendel predicted as ‘eka-aluminium’ on the periodic table.”
As she finished, Kisuke returned, setting a jar on the table. Inside was a bright silver colored chunk of material. He plucked it out with his bare fingers, displaying it in the palm of his hand “It’s very brittle normally, fractures like glass.”
He then closed his hand around it, forming a fist, and held it for a few moments, before opening his hand again. Noriyasu blinked as there was now a small pool of silvery liquid, like quicksilver. Kisuke smirked a little before upturning his hand, spilling it back into the container. “It melts at slightly above room temperature… unlike quicksilver it does get things wet, so it’s somewhat difficult to handle.
“We’re still working out other attributes,” he stated, before shrugging “Even so, the isolation of a new element is quite the scientific coup, wouldn’t you say?”
Noriyasu stared at the liquid in the jar for a few moment before smiling and leaning back in the chair “Indeed I would.”
