what language did Aluminum and Uranium originate from ? Who or what were they named for ?
The ancient Greeks and Romans used alumen (alum, potassium aluminium sulfate, K2Al6(OH)12(SO4)4) in medicine as an astringent, and as a mordant in dyeing. Alum was exported from ancient Greece and Italy. In 1761 the French chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816) proposed the name alumine for the base in alum. Guyton de Morveau was instrumental in setting up a standardised system for chemical nomenclature and often collaborated with Antoine Lavoisier, who in 1787, suggested that alumine was the oxide of a previously undiscovered metal. In 1808, Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) did experiments for the decomposition of alumine, silex, zircone, and glucine. He failed to isolate the metals in these, as he reported in his paper for the Royal Society of London on 30 June 1808, but he suggested names for the metals (note) Cf. Silicium, Zirconium, and Beryllium (Glucium) Thus he proposed the name alumium for this still undiscovered metal and later agreed to change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter the name aluminium was adopted to conform with the -ium ending of most elements. Uranium was named by its discoverer German chemist Martin Klaproth, after the last planet to have been discovered Uranus.
