Petition Calls for New Heavy Metal Element to Named for Motorhead’s Lemmy

In case you missed it, there was big news in the scientific world recently as researchers have discovered four brand new elements that will now be added to the periodic table.

Among those elements is a new heavy metal. A current petition is circulating on the internet calling for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (the folks who officially name new elements) to call the substance "Lemmium."

Personally, we think "Kilmister" sounds cooler, but we digress.

The petition which, at time of writing, has more than 28,000 signatures and even has the backing of Ken Durose, a professor of Physics and staunch Motorhead fan. “Everyone’s really amused by it in the Department of Physics at Liverpool University," he said.

Nevertheless, Professor Durose is quick to point out, “The problem is that elements have to be named after either their properties, a myth, a mineral, a place or a scientist."

Unfortunately, Lemmy wasn't any of those. So, the chances of the element being named for him are really pretty slim.

In the science world, having an element named for you is a really huge deal. Effectively, having one of the building blocks of our known universe named for you kinda makes you immortal.

For the most part, the more silly or celebrity-tribute-style names are reserved for things like proteins and stars (of which there are billions to name and its discoverers don't really mind giving up the "title").

Still, the petition is at the very least amusing. It reads, in part:

Lemmy was a force of nature and the very essence of heavy metal. We believe it is fitting that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry recommend that one of the four new discovered heavy metals in the periodic table is named Lemmium.”

The four new elements were discovered by teams of scientists from Japan, Russia and the United States.