In 1982 West German physicists at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research (Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung 【GSI】) in Darmstadt synthesized an isotope of meitnerium with a mass number of 266. Using a high-energy linear accelerator, the GSI investigators, under the direction of Peter Armbruster, bombarded bismuth-209 targets with beams of iron-58 ions for roughly 10 days. The resultant fusion reaction between the bismuth and iron atoms yielded only a single nucleus of the new element; however, the sensitivity of the detection technique employed left little doubt as to the validity of the identification. Meitnerium has an estimated half-life between 2 and 20 milliseconds.