Elements 113 and 115 discovered (probably)

[JamesM]

From NYT: (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/science/01ELEM.html?ex=1076216400&en=91af87c6dd4a6484&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE)
A team of Russian and American scientists are reporting today that they have created two new chemical elements, called superheavies because of their enormous atomic mass. The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond.
Could we at last be nearing the island of stability, ushering in a new chemistry with potentially exotic behaviour?

...or will our scientific meddling be punished, as these elements create a black hole, containing a wormhole that leads DIRECTLY TO HELL? Only a nuclear chemist, a mysterious - and beautiful - woman and an ex-CIA trained killer can save the world from the minions of Hades! 'Hellium' - the new novel by...

Whoops, got a bit carried away there.

[no one in particular]

Woo hoo, I had been feeling sorry for ununquadium and ununhexium sitting out there all by themselves. Lets all hear if for ununtrium and ununpentium!

[geni]

So what kind of weapon can we make out of these then?

Hopefuly sooner or latter we will make it as far as G orbitals (because I want to see how they are going to organise those into the periodic table).

[geni]

Originally posted by no one in particular
Woo hoo, I had been feeling sorry for ununquadium and ununhexium sitting out there all by themselves. Lets all hear if for ununtrium and ununpentium!


You're feeling sorry for elements? You mean I'm not the only one?

Does anyone have any idea when these things are going to get their provisional names replaced?

[JamesM]

Originally posted by geni
Does anyone have any idea when these things are going to get their provisional names replaced?
The IUPAC procedure can be found here (http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/2002/7405/7405x0787.html). Unfortunately, there's nothing on how long it takes to approve a name. These observations will have to confirmed independently first, anyway.

[Hamish]

Hopefuly sooner or latter we will make it as far as G orbitals (because I want to see how they are going to organise those into the periodic table).

It'll need special fold-out flaps.:D

I don't think anyone needs to worry until they make something which survives long enough to actually aquire electrons.

[American]

These elements are used for anti-gravity technology. You don't find them in nature, because they repel away from normal matter (the earth) and tend to congregate in deep space forming their own planets and solar systems. That's where all the "dark matter" is.

[Chaos]

Wasn´t there supposed to be an "island of stability" (i.e. non-radioactive elements) somewhere in the 110-120 range?

Any news on if that is still a viable hypothesis?

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by American
These elements are used for anti-gravity technology. You don't find them in nature, because they repel away from normal matter (the earth) and tend to congregate in deep space forming their own planets and solar systems. That's where all the "dark matter" is. You sound like Bob Lazar. Have you spent time at Area 51? Are they watching you? You probably can't say. I understand.

[neutrino_cannon]

Originally posted by Chaos
Wasn´t there supposed to be an "island of stability" (i.e. non-radioactive elements) somewhere in the 110-120 range?

Any news on if that is still a viable hypothesis?

I was under the impression that it was higher than that. And we ain't got higher than 115 yet. No knowlege if it is still a viable theory, but I hope it is! They seem so silly, just falling apart in fraction os a second like that.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon


I was under the impression that it was higher than that. And we ain't got higher than 115 yet. No knowlege if it is still a viable theory, but I hope it is! They seem so silly, just falling apart in fraction os a second like that.

I think it was 110-120, or perhaps 115-120. I remember (vaguely) my chemistry teaching saying that, when he told us that a laboratory (I think it was in Darmstadt, quite close to where I live) have discovered element 109 (or was is 108).
That would have been in 1994 or 1995.

On the other hand, if those stable superheavies don´t fall apart (or whatever the correct English term is), they should be around in nature somewhere, shouldn´t they?

[Abdul Alhazred]

Sort of on the subject:

When did element 104 stop being Kurchatovium and start being Rutherfordium?

And was the first discovery a false alarm, or was it academic or Cold War politics?

[JamesM]

Originally posted by Chaos
On the other hand, if those stable superheavies don´t fall apart (or whatever the correct English term is), they should be around in nature somewhere, shouldn´t they?
I'm no expert on astrophysics, but it seems possible to me that the relatively extreme conditions that would be required to create the superheavy stable elements would not necessarily end up creating a planet like Earth. Perhaps they're out there somewhere, but without making enough of them on Earth to characterise them in some way (the absorption spectra, for example), it would be hard to know what to look for in outer space.

If you go to the second page of the NYT article I linked to above, about halfway down is a brief discussion of the 'magic' proton and neutron numbers that would confer stability to superheavy elements. The artlcle says that element 113 (which formed as the decay product of 115) hung around for about a second, which is a pretty long time by the superheavy standards. Perhaps we're getting close?

[JamesM]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred
Sort of on the subject:

When did element 104 stop being Kurchatovium and start being Rutherfordium?
There is a nice article on the politics of naming element 104 here (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html).

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by JamesM

There is a nice article on the politics of naming element 104 here (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html).

Thank you. Kurchatovium is Russian inwention, tovarich.

For real! :D

[epepke]

Originally posted by JamesM
From NYT: (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/science/01ELEM.html?ex=1076216400&en=91af87c6dd4a6484&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE)

Could we at last be nearing the island of stability, ushering in a new chemistry with potentially exotic behaviour?

If I remember correctly, the island of stability is somewhere around atomic number 150 or so, so there's still a way to go.

If nothing else, we should be able to make some really nice darts.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by no one in particular
Woo hoo, I had been feeling sorry for ununquadium and ununhexium sitting out there all by themselves. Lets all hear if for ununtrium and ununpentium!

I wouldn't be suprised if something like ununpentium would be stable; after all, pentiums do have problems with division...

(Sorry, bad computer joke for those who remember the old problems with the pentium processor)

[neutrino_cannon]

Originally posted by epepke


If I remember correctly, the island of stability is somewhere around atomic number 150 or so, so there's still a way to go.

If nothing else, we should be able to make some really nice darts.

Or politicians!