Chemical element "Sb" (stibium) for antimony. Chemical symbols are understood internationally when element names might require translation. There have sometimes been differences in the past. For example, Germans in the past have used "J" (for the alternate name Jod) for iodine, but now use "I" and "Iod". The first letter of a chemical symbol is always capitalized, as in the preceding examples, and the subsequent letters, if any, are always lower case (small letters). Thus, the symbols for californium and einsteinium are Cf and Es. There are also symbols in chemical equations for groups of chemical elements, for example in comparative formulas.
Californium strong neutron emitter, which makes it extremely radioactive and harmful. Californium-252 undergoes alpha decay 96.9% of the time to form curium-248 while the remaining 3.1% of decays are spontaneous fission. One microgram (µg) of californium-252 emits 2.3 million neutrons per second, an average of 3.7 neutrons per spontaneous fission. Most of the other isotopes of californium decay to isotopes of curium (atomic number 96) via alpha decay. Californium was first synthesized at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, by the physics researchers Stanley G. Thompson, Kenneth Street, Jr., Albert Ghiorso, and Glenn T. Seaborg on or about February