Atomic number consistent with the modern practice of ordering the elements by proton number, "Z", but that number was not known or suspected at the time. A simple numbering based on periodic table position was never entirely satisfactory, however. Besides the case of iodine and tellurium, later several other pairs of elements (such as argon and potassium, cobalt and nickel) were known to have nearly identical or reversed atomic weights, thus requiring their placement in the periodic table to be determined by their chemical properties. However the gradual identification of more and more chemically similar lanthanide elements, whose atomic number was not
126 (number) and 126, an atomic nucleus with this many protons is or is predicted to be more stable than for other numbers. Thus, although there has been no experimental discovery of element 126, tentatively called unbihexium, it is predicted to belong to an island of stability that might allow it to exist with a long enough half life that its existence could be detected. 126 (number) 126 (one hundred [and] twenty-six) is the natural number following 125 and preceding 127. As the binomial coefficient formula_1, 126 is a central binomial coefficient and a pentatope number. It is also a decagonal number