Fluorine named the acidic product "fluss-spats-syran" (fluorspar acid). In 1810, the French physicist André-Marie Ampère suggested that hydrogen and an element analogous to chlorine constituted hydrofluoric acid. Sir Humphry Davy proposed that this then-unknown substance be named "fluorine" from fluoric acid and the "-ine" suffix of other halogens. This word, with modifications, is used in most European languages; Greek, Russian, and some others (following Ampère's suggestion) use the name "ftor" or derivatives, from the Greek φθόριος ("phthorios", destructive). The New Latin name "fluorum" gave the element its current symbol F; Fl was used in early papers. Initial studies on fluorine were
Chemistry: A Volatile History all the elements in their order: Notice carbon and silicon are in Group IV and the volatile gases fluorine, chlorine and bromine are in Group VII. Mendeleev was sufficiently confident in the layout of his table that he was willing to leave gaps for unknown elements to make the pattern fit – believing other elements would later be discovered that filled the gaps. So, for Mendeleev to be vindicated, the gaps needed to be filled, and luckily, in 1859, new instrumentation had been developed for discovering elements. Robert Bunsen knew that when certain elements burned in the flames of his