Fermium, One Hundred

Lyrics

[Verse 1] In a reactor’s hidden room, where the heavy atoms form, A speck of something newly born, too brief to weather storms. Berkeley, fifty-two: they traced the signal, checked the score, Fermium was the name they gave element one-oh-four? Wait—one hundred, number sealed in every core. [Pre-Chorus] From the wreckage of a star, A heavier mark, a rarer spark. [Chorus] Fermium, one hundred, hard to hold, hard to see, A fleeting little landmark in the family tree. Made by human hands, yet forged in cosmic fire, Fermium, one hundred—brief, and climbing higher. [Verse 2] Named for Enrico Fermi, though it won’t sit on a shelf, No bright ingot in a case, no sample to admire yourself. Its isotopes decay away; the clock begins to run, A secret in the periodic table, counted one by one. [Pre-Chorus] Beyond uranium’s line, A name survives its borrowed time. [Chorus] Fermium, one hundred, hard to hold, hard to see, A fleeting little landmark in the family tree. Made by human hands, yet forged in cosmic fire, Fermium, one hundred—brief, and climbing higher. [Bridge] Not a crown, not a treasure, Just a trace that science measured. In a flash, the proof was there— A hundred on the table, rare. [Final Chorus] Fermium, one hundred, hard to hold, hard to see, A fleeting little landmark in the family tree. Made by human hands, yet forged in cosmic fire, Fermium, one hundred—brief, and climbing higher. [Outro] One hundred—there, then gone, A tiny mark that carries on.