Elements 116 and 118 Are Discovered ! ! !

0

Golden Member
Jul 22, 2003
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At the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia, physicists (including collaborators from Lawrence Livermore National Lab in the United States) have sent a beam of calcium-48 ions into a target of californium-249 atoms to create temporarily a handful of atoms representing element 118. The nucleus for these atoms have a total atomic mass of 294 units.

The new team of American and Russian scientists is calling the new element Eka-radon, because on the periodic table of elements, familiar to every high school chemistry student, it would be placed just below radon, a well known radioactive element.

In fact, only three of these atoms, the heaviest ever produced in a controlled experiment, were observed. After sending 2 x 1019 calcium projectiles into the target, one atom of element 118 was discovered in the year 2002 and two more atoms in 2005. The researchers held up publication after seeing their first specimen in order to find more events. According to Livermore physicist Ken Moody, speaking at a press conference today from Livermore, the three events have been well studied and the odds of a statistical fluke at work here are less than a part in ten thousand.

Caution would naturally be on the minds of anyone announcing a new element; Evidence for element 118 was offered once before, by a team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (see PNU 432), but this claim was later retracted (PNU 550) when it was discovered that some of the data had been falsified.

In searching through 1019 collision events, how do you know you have found a new element? Because of the clear and unique decay sequence involving the offloading of alpha particles, nuclear parcels consisting of two protons and two neutrons. In this case, nuclei of element 118 decay to become element 116 (hereby itself discovered for the first time), and then element 114, and then element 112 by emitting detectable alphas. The 112 nucleus subsequently fissions into roughly equal-sized daughter particles.

The average lifetime observed for the three examples of element 118 was about one millisecond, not long enough to perform any kind of chemical tests (you'd need an hour's time for that). Element 118 lies just beneath radon in the periodic table and is therefore a kind of noble gas.

The Dubna-Livermore team previously announced the discovery of elements 113 and 115 (see PNU 672) and next hope to produce element 120 by crashing a beam of iron atoms into a plutonium target. To build nuclei much heavier than this you would need a beam of neutron-rich radioactive nuclei; the proposal to build an accelerator in the United States for doing just this has been stalled.

http://www.aip.org/pnu/2006/split/797-1.html

 

CarlKillerMiller

Diamond Member
Jul 14, 2003
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So, I'm kinda curious. What are the practical applications for this sort of study? I understand that such an element could be useful if it could be extensively studied, but I don't think they have much of a chance at that kind of stability.

Seems like a money sink, in my incredibly uninformed opinion.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
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www.neftastic.com
Originally posted by: CarlKillerMiller
So, I'm kinda curious. What are the practical applications for this sort of study? I understand that such an element could be useful if it could be extensively studied, but I don't think they have much of a chance at that kind of stability.

Seems like a money sink, in my incredibly uninformed opinion.

If I recall, it's important because there is a possibililty for man-made atoms to be created past a certain atomic mass threshold that are actually stable (ie: do not decay extremely rapidly). These elements would be super-dense and have many useful applications, particularly weaponry. Imagine the penetrating force of a superdense bullet, or the tensile strength of superdense metal.
 

iamaelephant

Diamond Member
Jul 25, 2004
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Originally posted by: CarlKillerMiller
So, I'm kinda curious. What are the practical applications for this sort of study? I understand that such an element could be useful if it could be extensively studied, but I don't think they have much of a chance at that kind of stability.

Seems like a money sink, in my incredibly uninformed opinion.

I'm sure the study of crazy quantum effects seemed like a money sink in the early 20th century, and now you have a personal computer to show for it. There are more examples of this kind of narrow minded thinking than I care to discuss, but there is no room for it in science.
 

Gibsons

Lifer
Aug 14, 2001
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Originally posted by: CarlKillerMiller
So, I'm kinda curious. What are the practical applications for this sort of study? I understand that such an element could be useful if it could be extensively studied, but I don't think they have much of a chance at that kind of stability.

Seems like a money sink, in my incredibly uninformed opinion.

If you're really optimistic, new (stable) materials/elements, sometime in the distant future. If you're not quite so optomistic, a better understanding of the forces that hold nuclei together. If you're cynical, it's mostly for bragging rights.

I'm in the slightly optimistic camp.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Originally posted by: SunnyD

If I recall, it's important because there is a possibililty for man-made atoms to be created past a certain atomic mass threshold that are actually stable (ie: do not decay extremely rapidly). These elements would be super-dense and have many useful applications, particularly weaponry. Imagine the penetrating force of a superdense bullet, or the tensile strength of superdense metal.

Unobtanium or U-335. :laugh:

 

SagaLore

Elite Member
Dec 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: 0
and next hope to produce element 120 by crashing a beam of iron atoms into a plutonium target.

That doesn't sound healthy. :confused:
 

NanoStuff

Banned
Mar 23, 2006
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Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: SunnyD

If I recall, it's important because there is a possibililty for man-made atoms to be created past a certain atomic mass threshold that are actually stable (ie: do not decay extremely rapidly). These elements would be super-dense and have many useful applications, particularly weaponry. Imagine the penetrating force of a superdense bullet, or the tensile strength of superdense metal.

Unobtanium or U-335. :laugh:

:laugh: I giggled like a school girl :(

These elements would be super-dense
Not necessarily. These things go somewhat beyond prediction. One can estimate based on where they would sit on the periodic table; but one thing's for sure, density doesn't increase linearly with atomic mass or number.
 

Vegitto

Diamond Member
May 3, 2005
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Wow, cool. I was just reading about the falsified information about elements 116 and 118 yesterday..
 

0

Golden Member
Jul 22, 2003
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Originally posted by: Vegitto
Wow, cool. I was just reading about the falsified information about elements 116 and 118 yesterday..

Too bad it isn't real stable.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
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I hope they make eludium PU36, so I can finally finish my Eludium PU36 Explosive Space Modulatooooor.
 

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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one thing to remember is, there is a slight probability that creating a new element will cause the universe to shatter.

 

0

Golden Member
Jul 22, 2003
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Originally posted by: Fritzo
I hope they make eludium PU36, so I can finally finish my Eludium PU36 Explosive Space Modulatooooor.

I like the instant martians, just add water!
 

chcarnage

Golden Member
May 11, 2005
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Originally posted by: Tom
one thing to remember is, there is a slight probability that creating a new element will cause the universe to shatter.

I heard this rumor first about the creation of black holes but as far as I know it is wrong in both cases.