Let There Be Aluminum-42: Experiment creates surprise isotope

Science News ^ | Week of Oct. 27, 2007 | Davide Castelvecchi

[Erasmus]

What they found with the particle detector was nuclei. Is it possible that any of these nuclei would have some property making it unable to take on the electrons required to become an atom?

Only one: the nucleus probably has a half-life so short, likely less than a microsecond, that it wouldn't have time to pick up a significant number of electrons.

If they found any other reason it had difficulty becoming neutralized, it would IMHO be a major, possibly revolutionary, discovery.

[Squawk 8888]

This is the kind of thing where the benefits are only seen decades later in unexpected ways. Case in point: Early twentieth century relativity and quantum physics led to GPS technology.

[ALPAPilot]

Good laugh to start off the day. As a student I worked at the NSCL testing the trim coils for the large accelerator, and the current director Conrad Gelbke was my Classical Mechanics professor. Thanks for the post.

[saganite]

Hmm. I see a lot of ignoranium floating around on this thread! ;^)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

“What good is a new baby?” - Max Borne when asked about quantum mechanics.

QM lead to the semiconductor, transistor and pretty much completely changed the way we experience the world.

Jonathan Swift lampooned astronomers’ concern for the course of the stars in heavens. But curiousity about celestial phenomenal lead to Newtonian Mechanics, which in turn created the modern world.

It is important to understand the physical world so that we can know which things are important.

[50sDad]

Iinteresting note: In this scene, you can catch one of the rare times they slipped and showed that Jimmy Doohan is missing one finger on his “mouse hand”.

[50sDad]

And let me know when they come up with adamantium!

It's way in the back...take a left turn right after the Mithril.

[50sDad]

My chemistry prof brother claimed at one of the big ring accellerators, they used to tie a scrub brush to the tail of a ferret and put in in the tube of the mile-long loop.

[far sider]

Like Adam in the book of Genesis, the heavy magnesium nuclei started appearing on the fifth day...

Sorry, Science News. Adam appeared on the sixth day. Probably don't have too many Bibles sitting around the lab, I guess.

Interesting article, neverdem, thanks for posting it.

[P3_Acoustic]

The value to society is making fatter, the wallets of the Peiodic Chart makers.

[P3_Acoustic]

OK, here’s the “R” I left out of periodic.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The value to society is making fatter, the wallets of the Peiodic Chart makers.

Hmmmmn.

(Robt looks for new element in PeeIodic Table..... Decides Potasium-Iodiotic is close enough.

Is reminded by his wife, the chemistry teacher, that Potasium-Idiotic is KIdiotic, but that is only found in elementary school administrative charts.

[theDentist]

KIdiotic... is only found in elementary school administrative charts.

And Congress. (See Pelosi, Reid et al.)

[SunkenCiv]

According to Baumann, most theories had predicted that aluminum-42 wouldn't exist... The discovery of aluminum-42 suggests that even heavier aluminum isotopes could exist...

I didn't check, but I'm sure the usual jokes (Star Trek IV, Doug Addams, etc) have already appeared.

[SunkenCiv]

The findings could help astrophysicists understand occasional X-ray emissions from neutron stars that are growing in mass. The 7-day-long experiment took place at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), an atom smasher at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

"Does this aluminum-42 make my cornea look fat" ping.

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[Sloth]

Like Adam in the book of Genesis, the heavy magnesium nuclei started appearing on the fifth day of the experiment.

This would be a lame simile even if it were accurate, but Adam was created on the sixth day in Genesis.

[AdmSmith]

The drip-line:



Map of bound nuclear systems as a function of the proton number Z (vertical axis) and the neutron number N (horizontal axis). This nuclear landscape forms the territory of radioactive nuclear beam physics. The black squares show stable, or nonradioactive, nuclei, which form the "valley of stability." The yellow color indicates nuclei that have been produced in laboratories and that live a short time. Adding either protons or neutrons (called nucleons) to a nucleus can move it away from the valley of stability, allowing it to reach the "drip line," where nuclear binding ends because the forces between neutrons and protons are no longer strong enough to hold these particles together. The nuclei beyond the drip lines are unbound to nucleon emission. Many thousands of exotic radioactive nuclei with very small or very large neutron-proton (N/Z) ratios are yet to be explored. In the (Z,N) landscape, they form the "terra incognita" indicated in green. The lines of astrophysics r- and rp- processes, which are responsible for the production of heavy elements in stars, are indicated. The red lines show the magic numbers known around the valley of stability. However, because the structure of nuclei is expected to change significantly as drip lines are approached, it is not known how the nuclear shell structure evolves at the extreme N/Z ratios. The doubly magic radioactive nuclei—neutron-poor tin-100 (50 protons and 50 neutrons) and neutron-rich tin-132 (50 protons and 82 neutrons)—are indicated by the red dots. Research at HRIBF addresses these unknowns.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v34_2_01/search.htm

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, that was magically delicious. :’)

[barb-tex]

Think what Al-42 will mean to the scrappers!
barbra ann

[skeptoid]

Would this be lightweight heavy metal?

. ..Yea .... it wud,

. ....bu-hit's owl about the meusic, reewy.