Atomic stability near element 125?

[Chaotic42]

My chemistry professor mentioned that there may be some stability near element 125 on the periodic table. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good information? I have to jet across a bit of the campus for my next class after Chemistry, so I don't have much time to discuss it with him.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give.

 

[Shalmanese]

Take a gander at this:

http://www.google.com.au/searc...island+of+stability%22

 

[Veramocor]

Much like electrons can fill into shells orbiting the nucleus. The nucleus has shells for protons and neutrons. When these shells are filled the atom should be energetically more stable. The next shell will be filled with 114 protons and around 184 neutrons. No one has created this combination of neutrons/protons yet, though they have formed some atoms with 114 protons but not as many neutons. These atoms have lasted orders of magnitude longer than other superheavy elelments like 109/110/111.

If they do suceed in making 114 w/184 neutrons and it has a very long half life, what will the chemical propierties be? I would guess similiar to Lead do to its placement on the periodic table.

 

[GMElias]

wow...this is awesome. I don't think your professor meant that "stability" has really been acheived. But rather, isolating an element with mass 125 for a millionth of a nanosecond!🙂 Anyway, still pretty cool in my opinion.
-Elias

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: GMElias
wow...this is awesome. I don't think your professor meant that "stability" has really been acheived. But rather, isolating an element with mass 125 for a millionth of a nanosecond!🙂 Anyway, still pretty cool in my opinion.
-Elias

He said that some chemists believe that there is an island of stability near 125 that would allow for decay times much longer than those >100 elements we have now. I don't know if he means *years* or hours, or what not.

Now I'm going to have to ask him and be late for English class! 😛

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

yeah anything that big will not be "stable" for more than a tiny fraction of a second, but it may be magnitudes greater than comparable elements are stable for. there was this chart in my old chem book that graphed the nuber of neuutrons vs protons and the stability of the nucleus seemed to lie on a strait line. these heavier elements diverge from this line exponentially it looks like.

here's a thought. anybody studied time dilation due to relativity. time goes slower for something traveling faster, so maybe there is a way to make the atom take longer to decay by speeding it up. any thoughts?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
yeah anything that big will not be "stable" for more than a tiny fraction of a second, but it may be magnitudes greater than comparable elements are stable for. there was this chart in my old chem book that graphed the nuber of neuutrons vs protons and the stability of the nucleus seemed to lie on a strait line. these heavier elements diverge from this line exponentially it looks like.

here's a thought. anybody studied time dilation due to relativity. time goes slower for something traveling faster, so maybe there is a way to make the atom take longer to decay by speeding it up. any thoughts?

I think that's how they observe particles after a collision. The particles would be very short lived, but they appear to be around longer because of their velocity.

 

[fuzzynavel]

from my basic understanding I would believe that it would be hard to get something Aslarge as number 125 to stay together due to reduced nuclear charge effects and shielding from the inner electron shells!!

now if they managed to get protons into the electron orbitals then that would be more interesting!!!
(P.S I know that they are not orbitals, just areas of probability)

 

[cquark]

here's a thought. anybody studied time dilation due to relativity. time goes slower for something traveling faster, so maybe there is a way to make the atom take longer to decay by speeding it up. any thoughts?

Yes, the muon experiment is a classic experiment for measuring time dilation. Cosmic rays create muons in the upper atmosphere, but since muons only have a half life of 2.2 microseconds, none would make it to the ground if they didn't experience time dilation due to travelling near the speed of light. The experiment measures the amount of muons at regular height intervals from the ground.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
He said that some chemists believe that there is an island of stability near 125 that would allow for decay times much longer than those >100 elements we have now. I don't know if he means *years* or hours, or what not.

No, he means milliseconds, not hours or years, but it's still a long time compared to the half lifes of other heavy elements which are measured in micro- or nano-seconds.

 

[eLiu]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
yeah anything that big will not be "stable" for more than a tiny fraction of a second, but it may be magnitudes greater than comparable elements are stable for. there was this chart in my old chem book that graphed the nuber of neuutrons vs protons and the stability of the nucleus seemed to lie on a strait line. these heavier elements diverge from this line exponentially it looks like.

here's a thought. anybody studied time dilation due to relativity. time goes slower for something traveling faster, so maybe there is a way to make the atom take longer to decay by speeding it up. any thoughts?

I think that's how they observe particles after a collision. The particles would be very short lived, but they appear to be around longer because of their velocity.

Yeup...this is how we observe muons impacting the earth, even though their decay times should cause them to disentigrate in the atmosphere (without relativity effects that is)

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: eLiu

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
yeah anything that big will not be "stable" for more than a tiny fraction of a second, but it may be magnitudes greater than comparable elements are stable for. there was this chart in my old chem book that graphed the nuber of neuutrons vs protons and the stability of the nucleus seemed to lie on a strait line. these heavier elements diverge from this line exponentially it looks like.

here's a thought. anybody studied time dilation due to relativity. time goes slower for something traveling faster, so maybe there is a way to make the atom take longer to decay by speeding it up. any thoughts?

I think that's how they observe particles after a collision. The particles would be very short lived, but they appear to be around longer because of their velocity.

Yeup...this is how we observe muons impacting the earth, even though their decay times should cause them to disentigrate in the atmosphere (without relativity effects that is)

Well kind of. You must take this effect into account with particle accelerators but the actual mechanisms that observe the particles don't really rely on this. Of course it helps in that the longer a particle lives, the greater the chance it will be detected.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
My chemistry professor mentioned that there may be some stability near element 125 on the periodic table. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good information? I have to jet across a bit of the campus for my next class after Chemistry, so I don't have much time to discuss it with him.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give.

Your prof sounds like BOB LAZAR, do you guys remember him. He was the guy that came out and said he worked at Area 51 and had seen spaceshipsworked on them etc. Well he also mainted there were elements out around 160 IIRC that the aliens used.....

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Yeup...this is how we observe muons impacting the earth, even though their decay times should cause them to disentigrate in the atmosphere (without relativity effects that is)

Well kind of. You must take this effect into account with particle accelerators but the actual mechanisms that observe the particles don't really rely on this. Of course it helps in that the longer a particle lives, the greater the chance it will be detected.[/quote]

I'm a particle physicist. We do both types of experiments: ones where we actively create particles in accelerators and others where we observe naturally generated particles like muons in the atmosphere generated from cosmic rays.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: eigen
Your prof sounds like BOB LAZAR, do you guys remember him. He was the guy that came out and said he worked at Area 51 and had seen spaceshipsworked on them etc. Well he also mainted there were elements out around 160 IIRC that the aliens used.....

He just said that some scientists believe that there is stability near 125. He meant no appreciable decay, like lead or anything else that's stable.

He said that he's not sure. He just mentioned is passingly as he was showing the class the periodic table.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: silverpig
Yeup...this is how we observe muons impacting the earth, even though their decay times should cause them to disentigrate in the atmosphere (without relativity effects that is)

Well kind of. You must take this effect into account with particle accelerators but the actual mechanisms that observe the particles don't really rely on this. Of course it helps in that the longer a particle lives, the greater the chance it will be detected.

I'm a particle physicist. We do both types of experiments: ones where we actively create particles in accelerators and others where we observe naturally generated particles like muons in the atmosphere generated from cosmic rays.
[/quote]

Well yeah, but the observation occurs in scintilliators, wire chambers, and other devices where the mechanisms of detection have the particle hitting some electrons which are then detected. This happens independent of the particle's lifetime (happens for stable electrons and protons as well as unstable muons).

I'm curious though, where do you work and what on? 🙂 I was going to be building some wirechambers for an experiment at Brookhaven, or helping a prof I had with some neutrino stuff (K2K), but the money was better doing non-physics related stuff for the time being 🙂

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: silverpig
Yeup...this is how we observe muons impacting the earth, even though their decay times should cause them to disentigrate in the atmosphere (without relativity effects that is)

Well kind of. You must take this effect into account with particle accelerators but the actual mechanisms that observe the particles don't really rely on this. Of course it helps in that the longer a particle lives, the greater the chance it will be detected.

I'm a particle physicist. We do both types of experiments: ones where we actively create particles in accelerators and others where we observe naturally generated particles like muons in the atmosphere generated from cosmic rays.

Well yeah, but the observation occurs in scintilliators, wire chambers, and other devices where the mechanisms of detection have the particle hitting some electrons which are then detected. This happens independent of the particle's lifetime (happens for stable electrons and protons as well as unstable muons).[/quote]

True, you don't observe them directly, but detectors in the ground looking for muons created by cosmic rays would see nothing as all the muons would have already decayed in the high atmosphere if it wasn't for relativistic extension of the muon lifeitme.

I'm curious though, where do you work and what on? 🙂 I was going to be building some wirechambers for an experiment at Brookhaven, or helping a prof I had with some neutrino stuff (K2K), but the money was better doing non-physics related stuff for the time being 🙂

I'm a theorist, but I did work at Brookhaven building detectors one summer in grad school. However, you're very right that the employment situation is better elsewhere so I'm not doing particle physics as a job any longer.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: cquarkI'm a theorist, but I did work at Brookhaven building detectors one summer in grad school. However, you're very right that the employment situation is better elsewhere so I'm not doing particle physics as a job any longer.

cool

:beer:

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: eigen

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
My chemistry professor mentioned that there may be some stability near element 125 on the periodic table. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good information? I have to jet across a bit of the campus for my next class after Chemistry, so I don't have much time to discuss it with him.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give.

Your prof sounds like BOB LAZAR, do you guys remember him. He was the guy that came out and said he worked at Area 51 and had seen spaceshipsworked on them etc. Well he also mainted there were elements out around 160 IIRC that the aliens used.....

According to Bob Lazar, the aliens use element 115. Scientists are currently able to create elements 114 and 116 through fusion, but the 115 (ununpentium) isotopes that have been created thus far have half-lives so short they haven't been able to even measure the properties of it. Supposedly the alien ships have a stable chunk of element 115 with a higher number of neutrons for a more stable isotope that has a similar nuclear configuration to tungsten which gives it unique gravitational properties. There are 2 U.S. patents relating to this from 1967-1968 by Henry W. Wallace, Patent # 3626605 is on how to create a "gravitational warp field" by spinning a chunk of Tungsten (or preferably of ununpentium) really fast, Patent #3626606 is on how to generate a "dynamic force field" from that gravitational field (warp drive).

So I guess the big question is, if there is an island of stability around 125, can a stable isotope of ununpentium be created using fission from there, rather than fusion from smaller atoms.