http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-added
I want to hang around long enough to see whether an island of stability is ever reached. The concept always fascinated me since my days of undergrad physics.
sibeen said:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-addedI want to hang around long enough to see whether an island of stability is ever reached. The concept always fascinated me since my days of undergrad physics.
I came across a few years back now. At that point in time heavy elements were the most common new elements but often not stable and existed for moments in some instances.
It’s going to be a PITA when they start in earnest on the eighth row, organisationally.
dv said:
It’s going to be a PITA when they start in earnest on the eighth row, organisationally.
How so?
sibeen said:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-addedI want to hang around long enough to see whether an island of stability is ever reached. The concept always fascinated me since my days of undergrad physics.
Ditto. I still keep a paper from that time in my filing cabinet, and check off our progress in finding new isotopes against it every couple of years.
The first possible “island of stability” is now well enough covered that we can be pretty sure that no stable isotopes exist now. This is not true of the second possible island of stability. We’re only grazing the edges of the second island, because nobody has yet figured out how to shove enough neutrons into an atomic nucleus.
My approach would be to immerse the whole experiment in a dense sea of thermal neutrons in the hope that some will be absorbed.
> “IUPAC has now initiated the process of formalising names and symbols for these elements temporarily named as ununtrium, (Uut or element 113), ununpentium (Uup, element 115), ununseptium (Uus, element 117), and ununoctium (Uuo, element 118).”
P.S. IUPAC is infamous for being way behind the times in recognising new elements. eg. Ununoctium has been known since 2005.
These chemicals that exist only for a poofteenth is that because we cannot maintain the conditions they need to survive, a bit like fusion, or something inherent. In other words, much like fusion can they exist elsewhere is the universe in big persisting lumps of the stuff?
i think it is more to do with the fact that the forces within the atom, attractive (strong) and repulsive (electrostatic), become unbalanced, or more in favour of the repulsive and they decay.
AwesomeO said:
These chemicals that exist only for a poofteenth is that because we cannot maintain the conditions they need to survive, a bit like fusion, or something inherent. In other words, much like fusion can they exist elsewhere is the universe in big persisting lumps of the stuff?
IIRC it’s because they are unstable and decay to another element pretty quick.
AwesomeO said:
These chemicals that exist only for a poofteenth is that because we cannot maintain the conditions they need to survive, a bit like fusion, or something inherent. In other words, much like fusion can they exist elsewhere is the universe in big persisting lumps of the stuff?
Inherently unstable, due to their unstable ratio of neutrons to protons, resulting in competing forces that inevitably entail various forms of nuclear decay.
The relative strengths of the nuclear & electric forces would presumably have to be different for them to exist for longer “elsewhere”.
Cheers all, so something inherent in its actual constitution. Can it ever be created in nature or are the requirements so singular it is only ever manufactured by something thinking?
AwesomeO said:
Cheers all, so something inherent in its actual constitution. Can it ever be created in nature or are the requirements so singular it is only ever manufactured by something thinking?
Awesome: it is a matter of probabilities. The collision speeds that can occur “in nature” have no upper limit so in any given second you can’t say that it is impossible that there exists one atom of a particular nuclide in a given supernova but it is hard to imagine any circumstances in which there could be several of theme together outside a lab.
Then again if the universe is truly infinite then it is a sure thing…
the only way (i think, though fairly sure) elements heavier than iron are made is in supernova. i would think that this places an upper limit on the amount of energy available to make the heavy elements. there might not be that energy to make these particular elements.
ahhh yes, “probability”. forgot about that one.
Well that makes it very very cool. Summoning into existance something so rare and rare not as in unique as in there is only one of me, but so rare as to be almost non existent.
What purpose is served by creating all these fantastical, short lived elements? And why do they need to added to the table of elements?
furious said:
What purpose is served by creating all these fantastical, short lived elements? And why do they need to added to the table of elements?
Fair question but there is some hope that these discoveries bring us closer to the so called “island of stability” that may yield more useful, or even revolutionary, materials.
dv said:
furious said:
What purpose is served by creating all these fantastical, short lived elements? And why do they need to added to the table of elements?
Fair question but there is some hope that these discoveries bring us closer to the so called “island of stability” that may yield more useful, or even revolutionary, materials.