New York. In the New Yorker’s society column, a strange piece of news appears: the University of California at Berkeley has just discovered elements 97 and 98 and named them Berkelium and Californium. (These are the first new elements since the birth of the Solar System.) And the reporter comments that they just missed the opportunity to create a string of elements named Universitium, Offo, Californium, and Berkelium. Glen Seaborg and Albert Ghiorso of UC Berkeley will also comment that the choice stemmed from the dismaying possibility that, after naming 97 and 98 as Universitium and Offo, New Yorkers would then discover 99 and 100 and name them Newium and Yorkium.
