Motörhead fans want to permanently memorialize the band’s frontman, Lemmy Kilmister, with a place on chemistry’s periodic table of elements.
A petition’s has been started to give the newly discovered Ununoctium 118 a much cooler name – Lemmium– honoring the singer, who died last week.
The element is one of four so called “super-heavy” elements recently added to the chart.
Longtime fan John Wright set up the online petition, which has already gathered 15,000 signatures.
“Heavy rock lost its most iconic figure over Christmas with the sudden and unexpected death of Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister,” Wright wrote. “Lemmy was a force of nature and the very essence of heavy metal.”
He continued, “We believe it is fitting that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommend that one of the four new discovered heavy metals in the periodic table is named Lemmium.”
The idea is popular among many fans, some were quick to point out that Motörhead isn’t technically a heavy metal band.
“Lemmy always said Motörhead wasn’t heavy metal, he said ‘We’re Motörhead and we play rock and roll’. If 118 is a noble gas that’s fine with me,” Christopher Scurrah wrote.
Kilmister died on December 28th of cancer. The frontman recently celebrated his 70th birthday.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry added the four new elements, discovered by scientists in America, Japan and Russia, respectively, on December 30th.
additional source: nypost.com
3 Responses
Perhaps an additional criterion for his being on the list is that Lemmy ingested pretty much every chemical on the Periodic Table.
Lemmy’s memorial is today. This is gonna be rough for my brother and I. Motorhead is one of the few bands which with we both connected. He’s six years younger than me and has some similar interests, but mostly not. He never got into Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, UFO and a lot of bands I love, but Motorhead was different. I took him to his first concert, which was Motorhead. I was 19 and he was 13. I was already a Motorhead fan, but from that concert on my brother was a HUGE Motorhead fan. He’s coming to my house today and we’re gonna watch Lemmy’s memorial online together.
This album is one of my favorites.
Motorhead Orgasmatron full album: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ABIMzJUWd34