Page "Francium" Paragraph 1

In 1936, Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and his French colleague Yvette Cauchois also analyzed pollucite, this time using their high-resolution X-ray apparatus.

They observed several weak emission lines, which they presumed to be those of element 87.

Hulubei and Cauchois reported their discovery and proposed the name moldavium, along with the symbol Ml, after Moldavia, the Romanian province where Hulubei was born.

In 1937, Hulubei's work was criticized by American physicist F. H. Hirsh Jr., who rejected Hulubei's research methods.

Hirsh was certain that eka-caesium would not be found in nature, and that Hulubei had instead observed mercury or bismuth X-ray lines.

Hulubei, however, insisted that his X-ray apparatus and methods were too accurate to make such a mistake.

Because of this, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Nobel Prize winner and Hulubei's mentor, endorsed moldavium as the true eka-caesium over Marguerite Perey's recently discovered francium.

Perey, however, continuously criticized Hulubei's work until she was credited as the sole discoverer of element 87.