Six Atoms of Element 117 Produced

mr crypto writes "A team of Russian and American scientists has produced six atoms of a new element, number 117, that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. The element, still nameless, appears to point the way toward a brew of still more massive elements with chemical properties no one can predict. The researchers say that the discovery bolsters the idea of an 'island of stability' among still heavier elements."

Comments

Re:Chemical properties

[Chris Burke]

You have a good idea of some properties in general but not all and not in specific. Like, you could probably guess that this element would like to form a single bond, but how strong would it be? How readily does it ionize? Blah blah blah nevermind you're right.

Re:Hey chemists

[Trepidity]

In some cases even quantum-mechanical methods fail to describe heavier elements, for example gold wouldn't have gold color if not treated relativistically.

Wow, for some reason I never knew that. Mercury being a liquid at room temperature is apparently also a relativistic effect. Interesting stuff.

Re:Chemical properties

[modrzej]

Actually, not outer but inner, or core, electrons move at relativistic velocities. Classically described, they are moving in orbits close to the nucleus, so when it has huge positive charge, electric field is strong enough to accelerate movement of negatively charged particles to relativistic speed. Outer electrons aren't affected as much because they feel as if the nucleus had smaller charge simply because it is screened by core electrons.

Not true

[students]

A good quantum analog of the classical speed grandparent was talking about is the root mean square velocity (computed from the momentum operator), which need not be zero for a bound state. The Heisenberg uncertainty relation shows that a particle in any state may be observed to have a nonzero velocity.

Perhaps you are thinking that the wavefunction, as it is written in most textbooks, does not depend on time. Usually in books the time dependent factor is dropped because it is not very interesting. Also, it is incorrect to think that the motion of a wavefunction is the quantum analog of the classical motion of a particle. Always think in expectation values.