Posted on 04/08/2008 10:56:22 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Modern-day scientific Magellans and Columbus's, exploring the uncharted seas at the fringes of the Periodic Table of the Elements, have landed on one long-sought island - the fabled Island of Stability, home of a new genre of superheavy chemical elements sought for more than three decades.
In a presentation at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, one of the captains of these expeditions into the unknown, described how researchers now are eying other islands on the more-distant fringes of the periodic table.
"Now that it has been shown that the 'island of stability' of superheavy elements exists, it would be interesting to predict the position of other islands," said Yuri Oganessian, Ph.D., of Russia's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. He is the scientific leader at the Institute's Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.
The discovery of superheavy elements at the beginning of this century by Oganessian's group also confirmed the existence of the Island of Stability, a theoretical region of the periodic table, which distinguished chemist and Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg considered as one of the keystones of fundamental science. The "sea-and-island" analogy arose because these superheavy elements lie in an area of the periodic table where other elements are unstable, disappearing in much less than the blink of an eye. The superheavies, in contrast, are somewhat more stable than their shorter-lived cousins.
Oganessian's group has teamed with California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to synthesize five new elements (113, 114, 115, 116, and 118) over the past six years. Such superheavy elements do not exist in nature and can only be created by smashing lighter elements together at tremendous speeds obtained by means of highly sophisticated particle accelerators.
The periodic table, a fixture on the walls of science classrooms around the world, lists all the chemical elements. These materials make up everything in the universe, from human beings, medicines, and food to stars and swirling clouds of gas a billion light-years across the universe. Click here (pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/elements.html) to view the ACS's interactive Periodic Table of the Elements.
The first 92 elements on the table exist naturally. The rest - which now extend to element 118 - were created by scientists in atomic nuclei collision with the aid of particle accelerators. Aptly named, these machines accelerate atoms to nearly 1/10 the speed of light and smash them into other so-called "target" atoms. Sometimes the nuclei of two colliding atoms fuse and a new element is formed.
Oganessian and his colleagues are currently using Dubna's particle accelerator in an attempt to synthesize yet another superheavy element, No. 120, to add more territory to the island of stability. Strikingly, Oganessian believes that another, more distant, island of stability lies further out in that sea at the periodic table's fringes.
"The next island is located very far from the first one," said Oganessian. How far away might that next island be" In terms of numbers on the periodic table, it could lie around atomic number 164, as some theorists predicted, certainly a long way from where researchers are exploring today in hopes of discovering element 120.
But reaching the shores of the next island of stability will require a more deep understanding of the processes of element formation and a newer, more sophisticated particle accelerator, Oganessian believes.
In order to study the physical and chemical properties of the current and yet-to-be discovered superheavy elements, the researchers will need to produce many more nuclides than they have been able to do so far, according to Oganessian.
"For this purpose, we need to increase the beam intensity, which will demand a new accelerator," Oganessian said.
It is difficult to anticipate what practical uses might come out of the search for new superheavy elements. For now, the focus is on discovery, not application. However, some previously synthesized elements have yielded tremendous benefits for people. One example, element 95 - Americium - discovered in 1944, is used in smoke detectors and in medical and industrial radiography.
Oganessian declined to speculate on potential uses of future superheavy elements, but noted that it will take revolutionary new technology to produce large enough amounts of these elements to make them of practical use. Although he said it is hard for him to imagine such a technology, he expressed faith in the abilities of future researchers.
"I don't want to fantasize, but if they can devise a method for the production of superheavy elements in large quantities, I am sure they can find some worthy application for these elements," Oganessian said.
I had no idea that any artificial element had ever existed for more than a fraction of a second—let alone that I had one in my house!
Perhaps unobtanium will be found after all................
Eka-Platinum ping
When I learned the table in school, 104 was the end of the line although not yet created.
When I was in school it was 4.
Air · Fire · Water · Earth
Yeah, but when they do, they'll rename it to Voilaium.
And in the next island of stability, eka-unobtanium!
But it only lasts for four hours, so they’ll haveta call it Viagrium......
Your thinking of Earth Wind & Fire. Funny how the 60's make you forget your schoolin.
>>I had no idea that any artificial element had ever existed for more than a fraction of a second<<
Dear Arthur McGowan,
Plutonium is a transuranic element (all elements with an Atomic Number of greater than 92 - the Atomic Number of Uranium - are so-called transuranics) and is used in some atomic bombs (like the one dropped on Nagasaki, “Fat Man;” the Hiroshima bomb was a Uranium bomb.)
It goes without saying that Pu-239 (the isotope used in the bomb) has a halflife of much more than a fraction of a second. In fact, its halflife is approx. 24,000 years.
Regards,
Or they’ll find Corbomite instead..............
I’d rather see viagrium on the periodic chart than impotium.
or dysfunctium..............
The Elements
By Tom Lehrer
Now, if I may digress momentarily from the main stream of this evenings symposium, I’d like to sing a song which is completely pointless but is something which I picked up during my career as a scientist. This may prove useful to some of you some day perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances. It’s simply the names of the chemical elements set to a possibly recognizable tune.
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
< gasp >
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
Isn’t that interesting?
I knew you would.
I hope you’re all taking notes, because there’s going to be a short quiz next period.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
< gasp >
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Haaaaaaaahrvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.
Now, may I have the next slide please?
Got carried away there.
Not technetium (atomic number 43) or promethium (atomic number 61). Their longest half lives are 4.2 million years and 17.7 years respectively.
They will have a problem since the superheavy will eat all its electrons.
I have quite a few parts on my 38 year old Porsche that are made from unobtanium. The problem isn't finding it. It's finding MORE of it.
I would settle for a stable 3.
And all this time, I thought you had named yourself!
Ultimately there are no stable nuclei. Eventually they will all be gone. Even better, the proton and the neutron also have a limited, if lengthy lifetime and will also all be gone.
Everything is made of nothing ... very carefully organized.
bump
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Pure Neutronium
Are they talking about findings from a deep-sea exploration mission?
Or are they just using that analogy? I’m confused
I had assumed that Plutonium was natural, precisely because it was used in The Bomb.
BTW: I’ve been wondering for a long time—is Plutonium so poisonous because of its chemical properties, or because of its radioactivity?
Both.
The radiation is very bad, but skin contact also creates heavy metals disease (no normal method to process the material from your body). If the radiation doesn’t kill you the heavy metals aspect certainly will.
Dilithium and Latinum are out there somewhere.
No, you’re right; it’s just an analogy. They’re not going to find these elements in the deep sea or anywhere in the universe for that matter, I’m guessing, as these superheavyweights probably haven’t existed since shortly after the Big Bang, if then. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong, please!)
THat reminds me of the “My Favorite Martian” episode when Uncle Martin finally gets use of a Cyclotron at UCLA to make some unobtanium to repair his spaceship. He finally makes enough of the stuff to effect his repairs and then realizes he doesn’t have any tools made of Super Unobtanium to shape the stuff.
Not unlike the Whitworth Wrenches needed for British cars
I’m familiar with this material. I had customers continually specifying it for their machined parts.
www.blacklightpower.com
:}
Where’s 117?
Ahh, someone from my parents' generation!
By the time I hit high school chem, we had added #5, Spirit.
>>better, the proton and the neutron also have a limited, if lengthy lifetime and will also all be gone<<
How true! Free neutrons (not bound in an atomic nucleus) have a half-life of roughly 1,000 seconds.
Protons? I can’t find it right now, but I seem to recall that they had a half-life on the order of 10^20 years.
Regards,
True, protons will take somewhat longer to evaporate. Then whatever is left from that may take even longer before it too is gone. But, we are gearing up for the more immediate concern of the Pennsylvania Dem primary, so we will put this proton thing on the back burner for a while and get back to it later if it is still a problem.
What about dark matter?
Where did you get that?
It was in the article. Having never personally seen any dark matter, I can’t say the statement is incorrect, however.
I don’t know if dark matter has a half-life. That’s already more than I know about dark matter.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.