Stable Roentgenium Claimed Found In Gold

eldavojohn writes "Amnon Marinov, a physicist specializing in super heavy elements, claims that a stable isotope of roentgenium is commonly found alongside gold, just in very small quantities that we could not measure before. To prove this, he boiled gold in a vacuum, postulating that as the gold evaporated, the roentgenium should remain. He did this for two weeks and then passed the resulting mess through a mass spectrometer and was left with several peaks that could be explained away except for one. Marinov lead the team that found the first super heavy 122 thorium isotope in nature a few years back and now claims that, despite all indications that this super heavy element shouldn't exist longer than a few seconds, he has found a stable isomer of roentgenium in nature. Is he on to something, or overlooking a simpler explanation in his quest for evidence of the island of stability long theorized by physicists?"

Comments

Isomer?

[HaeMaker]

...he has found a stable isomer of roentgenium in nature.

You mean isotope?

Re:Isomer?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nuclear Isomers" exist, which refers to excitation states inside the nucleus. What he is saying is that such a excited state in the nucleus makes the element 'more stable' than its ground state, and thus doesn't decay.

Re:Isomer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isomer? No. Homer. He has worked at a nuclear power plant and snacks on things laying around.

The gold was from his teeth.

Re:Isomer?

[Jane Q. Public]

Strictly speaking, he may be referring to a "structural isomer", but if so, it can only be defined in terms of other isomers, and further, it is a molecular distinction, not nuclear.

It still could be an isotope. But not an isomer, per se.

I can fully appreciate the necessity of distinguishing between certain quantum states, but there is no excuse to confuse that with gross structural molecular form, which is what is being referred to when someone says "isomer".

If it is necessary to distinguish between such nuclear states then a completely different terminology should apply.

I don't call the building I live in "squishy", or my friend Joe "humid". If I did, perhaps I was trying to make some kind of analogy, but it would still be improper.

Re:Isomer?

[bcrowell]

Strictly speaking, he may be referring to a "structural isomer", but if so, it can only be defined in terms of other isomers, and further, it is a molecular distinction, not nuclear.

The term has different meanings in nuclear physics than in chemistry. In nuclear physics, it refers to an unusually long-lived excited state of the nucleus.

Re:Isomer?

[radtea]

I can fully appreciate the necessity of distinguishing between certain quantum states, but there is no excuse to confuse that with gross structural molecular form, which is what is being referred to when someone says "isomer".

Shape isomers are a well-known type of highly deformed electromagnetic excitation of heavy nuclei that cannot de-excite easily due to their high angular momentum. Photons carry only one unit of spin angular momentum, and to dexcite a shape isomer requires a photon be emitted in a state with very high orbital angular momentum. This gives shape isomers extremely long lives relative to their excitation energy.

The island of stability is not a result of shape isomerism, it is a product of high angular momentum nuclei that are stable against nuclear decay due to the way the orbital momentum state of the nucleons increases the binding energy.

The difficulty is that the cranked shell model, which is where we get these predictions, is not exactly a stellar physical theory, and the island of stability exists a long way from where it is known to work.

Re:Isomer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank You for that clarification

Re:Isomer?

[Jane Q. Public]

But that's my point, which I suppose I did not make very clear. I implied that it was technically incorrect. What I meant was that it is confusing: on the one hand, it refers to the physical structure of a molecule. On the other hand, it refers to quantum states in an atom. Surely, physicists could come up with a unique name for the property under discussion, rather than confusingly borrowing a term that refers to something very different.

First Moo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mooooooooo!

Re:First Moo!

[monkyyy]

i worship ur cleverness

Re:First Moo!

[PPH]

An udder waste of time!

I'll take two

[hellkyng]

Is there a roentgenium market yet? For the savvy investor looking to diversify from gold.

Re:I'll take two

[machine321]

Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor.

Re:I'll take two

[Hal_Porter]

Spam is an excellent alternative to gold. It's inflation proof lasts for ever and you can eat it if the balloon goes up.

Re:I'll take two

[MichaelSmith]

Thats great I've got a hundred megabytes of the stuff in my mailer.

Re:I'll take two

[Straterra]

Whoopwhoop whoop whoop whoop!

Re:I'll take two

[treeves]

How many MB does it take to equal 1 gram, using E=mc^2 and making some assumptions about how much energy it takes to create, transmit and store 1 MB of information? I suspect you don't even have a picogram.

Re:I'll take two

[silverglade00]

Probably not, but if he has a hundred MB of it, maybe what he really needs is an ounce of prevention.

Re:I'll take two

[garyebickford]

I used to have this amusing rhetorical question, "How much does a bit weigh?". But after reading an article in Scientific American a couple of years ago, I learned that the proper measure of a bit is not mass but area. I don't recall the whole deal but this is as close as I can remember: It turns out, according to the article, that conservation of entropy requires that information be conserved at the event horizon of a black hole, so the area of a black hole (as defined by the surface of the event horizon, which is a spherical shell more or less) must be at least large enough such that for each bit of information contained in the black hole, the event horizon surface must contain an area two planck lengths on a side. So that's the area of a bit. :D

Now, speculating, I suppose that this measure could be extrapolated in some way to determine mass of a bit but that's for someone else to figure out. Perhaps the relation of the mass of the black hole to the surface area? This physics is way too exotic for me to have any serious idea if that makes sense.

Re:I'll take two

[Jane Q. Public]

The problem with that being that in fact at the event horizon of a black hole, information is indeed lost (in violation of the law, which physicists acknowledge), and so this doesn't hold true. It doesn't get you anywhere to follow someone's mathematical model when it contains a known inconsistency.

Of course we know of such things as Cherenkov and Hawking radiation, which could -- just maybe -- serve to preserve that "lost information". But if so, nobody today has a clue about how that may be determined.

By the way: there is no such thing as "conservation of entropy". Entropy increases. Period.

Re:I'll take two

[Mindcontrolled]

Theoretically, in the creation of data no bits are deleted, so the process is in principle, reversible. As we are talking about spam here, which is by definition non-information, we can regard every bit of spam created as one bit of information lost. Therefor, the Landauer limit applies and each created bit of spam leads to the release of kT ln 2 of heat. Assuming an ideal computer at room temperature, we end up with 2.4E-12 J of energy needed to create 100 MB of spam. Put that in Einstein's formula and we end up with 2.6 e-26 g of matter represented by 100 MB of spam, which is about the mass of 29 electrons or 1/26th of a proton.

Re:I'll take two

[radtea]

Of course we know of such things as Cherenkov and Hawking radiation, which could -- just maybe -- serve to preserve that "lost information".

Cherenkov radiation is emitted when a charged particle travels faster than light in a medium (such a electrons in water, where the speed of light is 25% or so less than in vacuum) and has absolutely nothing to do with the information dynamics of black holes, of which the GP gives a somewhat garbled but not entirely wrong account of.

Re:I'll take two

[garyebickford]

By the way: there is no such thing as "conservation of entropy". Entropy increases. Period.

I should have said conservation of information - which IIRC is itself somewhat controversial - isn't this an area of rather heated discussion among the physicists?

OTOH, (also IIRC), entropy and (loss of) information are duals or two sides of the same coin - entropy from the information-theoretic point of view is loss of information, which also from the mass-energy point of view is loss of energy. The 'heat death' can also be described as the reduction of all information to randomness. So conservation of energy and conservation of information are equivalent. And, so at least in a negative sense, entropy is conserved as well. Otherwise mass is removed from the universe when it is sucked into a black hole, which would mean its gravitational effect on the universe would be gone - if I got this right.

I think this was the article, which in its first sentence presumes that entropy is conserved: Information in the Holographic Universe.

The article itself requires registration, but here's the first bit from my search on the SciAm website:

# Information in the Holographic Universe: The Entropy of a Black Hole THE ENTROPY OF A BLACK HOLE is proportional to the area of its event horizon,... July 14, 2003 – Scientific American Magazine By Jacob D. Bekenstein

Sheesh. It's been a looong time since I pondered this stuff much. Anyway, thanks for the correction.

Re:I'll take two

[mysidia]

Is there a roentgenium market yet? For the savvy investor looking to diversify from gold.

I think we're already awash in options for the savvy investor looking to diversify from gold, there are of course TIPS, agriculture.. and OIL.

Which are, well, less risky and more likely to be profitable.

Unless of course Roentgenium somehow becomes 'the next investing fad'

If it can be found so reliably in Gold, however, its price could become closely tied to a particular multiple of the price of gold.

Re:I'll take two

[Jane Q. Public]

Pardon me; I should not have included Cherenkov radiation in with the Hawking radiation.

Interesting if true

[gman003]

Roentgenium is element #111, right below gold on the periodic table, and well within the zone of "highly unstable elements". Not just "unstable" - it's well into the group of elements that decay in seconds. The most stable isotope discovered so far, Rg 281, has a half-life of just 20 seconds. So I have some doubts about this - every other "stable transuranic element" story I've heard ended up being a mistake or a hoax.

I'm also wondering how Marinov suspected it would be in gold. The only link I can find is that they're both group 11 elements, but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

Marinov lead the team

Is this a chemistry joke?

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.

Have you looked?

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

often times, when mining platinum, gold and silver silver, as well as some copper, is present is large amounts. He probably guessed it would continue to the next heaviest element.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. I just boiled a huge amount sulfur in vacuum, and a mass of stable tellurium remained.

Re:Interesting if true

[nitehawk214]

Actually platinum is the element just below gold... :)

Re:Interesting if true

[pookemon]

but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case

Maybe it is, but not at levels that have been detectable before, as in this case. However the following link seems to indicate that Tellurium is found in Sulfides.

Re:Interesting if true

[medv4380]

His method is posted and well documented so it shouldn't be too long before someone repeats the process to see if they get the same results. The only question is how much gold do you need to get enough atoms to show up in the scan.

Re:Interesting if true

[SEWilco]

I'm also wondering how Marinov suspected it would be in gold. The only link I can find is that they're both group 11 elements, but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.

Sulfur is more reactive, so the geological and chemical processes which form sulfur deposits also separate it from gold. Gold doesn't react with as many things as sulfur, so an element with similar characteristics will be more diluted in sulfur than in a gold deposit. On the other hand, if this element does indeed also travel with sulfur then there's a chance that larger amount might be in the larger sulfur deposits even if there's less per ton.

Re:Interesting if true

[MichaelSmith]

If it does have an obscure stable state it could make a fantastic rocket fuel.

Or bomb.

Re:Interesting if true

[Monkeedude1212]

I'm also wondering how Marinov suspected it would be in gold. The only link I can find is that they're both group 11 elements, but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.

Of course not, everyone knows that elements form their cliques based on their classification, not the group # they've been assigned. This is why you see Hydrogen sleeping around with all the other non-metals and not really with any of the Alkali Metals. Everyone knows that Sulfur is a non-metal and Tellurium is a metalloid, and metalloids are known for being really a really exclusive group - they wouldn't even let Aluminium in despite her flexible standards.

No, I'm pretty sure Marinov studied the social situation amongst the elements pretty closely and determined that transitional metals - since they are going through puberty - are noticing all those really weird little changes. I mean gold has become a little more malleable to the ladies, copper and silver are noticing their skin has started conducting these little tiny dots.

Its only a natural part that Gold has started to notice its growing a new element in odd places. Don't be worried, its all part of the process.

Re:Interesting if true

[Dthief]

He did claim to find another element (122) in gold previously. So probably just assumed every element could be found in a piece of gold

Re:Interesting if true

[Dthief]

depends on the order you stack the pieces

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that depends on your definition of 'below'. My definition would be 'underneath', and unless you hold your periodic table sideways, platinum is not below gold, but it is before it.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +1 funny

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

Goldschmidt Classification. Although I too have my doubts about the stable Rg, there is some reason to the madness of expecting certain elements to be found with other ones.

Re:Interesting if true

[Yvanhoe]

This is related to the predicted "sea of stability" that exist inside the zone of highly unstable elements. Look at the last link of the summary for details. Rg 289 should be close to this peak of stability

Re:Interesting if true

[Dr. Spork]

Really? Silver silver? You mean like ture silver, as in mithril? Damn, has anyone tried to make chain mail from it?

Re:Interesting if true

[gman003]

Interesting. I knew there ought to be some reason, but I didn't know what that reason was.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

I can recommend a good doctor.

Re:Interesting if true

[WalksOnDirt]

Roentgenium is element #111, right below gold on the periodic table, and well within the zone of "highly unstable elements".

Elements 110 through 114 have long been expected to be an island of stability. The problem is that we cannot stuff enough neutrons in, as Rg 281 still has too few. So far, the heaviest isotope created is also the most stable. The only problem is that the odd atomic number elements are expected to be less stable, so that 110, 112 or 114 would be more believable. I don't think it's really likely that he has found Rg, but it's not impossible.

Rg, if it exists, would indeed be found as a trace element in Au.

Re:Interesting if true

[treeves]

In an alphabetical list of the element's names, hafnium is the element just below gold, and in an alphabetical list of chemical symbols, boron is just below gold, but that's not important now. And stop calling me "Shirley".

Re:Interesting if true

[fatp]

I guess he is just hoping to get sponsors for his experiments by providing him a lot of gold!

Re:Interesting if true

[glwtta]

but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.

I don't know, have you checked all the sulfur?

Re:Interesting if true

[Megane]

Maybe you don't find tellurium in sulfur, but it sure can take the place of Sulfur. Selenium can give you some pretty bad breath if it gets into your body chemistry, but if you get tellurium into your body, you'll have the worst kind of body odor ever, and it takes months for it to wear off.

You do NOT want "tellurium breath".

Re:Interesting if true

[Opportunist]

I'm also wondering how Marinov suspected it would be in gold.

Let's see... his test consist of boiling away a few kilos or even many kilos of gold, practically implicitly meaning that at least some of it cannot be recovered...

Oh, I could see a reason. Though I would've been looking in, say, Palladium.

Re:Interesting if true

[Dialecticus]

...I have some doubts about this - every other "stable transuranic element" story I've heard ended up being a mistake or a hoax.

Personally, I'm hoping it'll turn out that he's discovered unobtanium . That stuff would be so useful...

Re:Interesting if true

[ThePromenader]

brb.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

I think steel suspects silver has been fooling around with sapphire.

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, I haven't laughed that hard since I read today's xkcd.

Re:Interesting if true

[radtea]

So probably just assumed every element could be found in a piece of gold

Yes, you have correctly identified exactly how scientists think: we just kind of randomly assume stuff with no basis, and then spend thousands of hours on expensive and difficult experiments and observations hoping our random assumptions are correct.

Or sometimes, just for a change of pace, we consider carefully things like the chemistry and geology of gold deposits and the known processes of fractionation of heavy elements in the Earth's crust, and design our experiments and observations around a good understanding of all known and relevant facts.

But then we go back to the tried and true method of "probably just assuming" because really, why wouldn't we?

Re:Interesting if true

[Dthief]

No, I just don't consider this person to be a scientist, which is why I characterize his experimental method as such

Re:Interesting if true

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't claim to find 122 in Gold, he claimed to find it in Thorium.

Re:Interesting if true

[Rich0]

Well, not having read up on him much, could this just be a case of the lamppost principle? Maybe some particular technology allows gold impurities to be separated more readily than in other metals. If so, then we might as well see what we find when we look for them.

In theory you're as likely to find a magnetic monopole in a teacup as you are to find one in a massive tank of super-ultra-pure water buried a mile under a mountain in a salt mine. However, you're a lot more likely to detect the monopole in the latter than in the former, so that is where we look for them.

Ditto with studying genetics in E. Coli - do we care about the bacteria that much? No, but chances are that if you find something interesting going on you'll have a wealth of other material to leverage when figuring out how it works.

Re:Interesting if true

[Tibe]

Roentgenium is element #111, right below gold on the periodic table

So he boiled off the Gold from the top and was left with the Roentgenium below.
Makes perfect sense to me.

Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[oakbox]

Fiction comes to life?

In the Baroque Cycle, the background story is all about a special, heavy form of gold with magical powers.

Neat.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[PCM2]

In the Baroque Cycle, the background story is all about a special, heavy form of gold with magical powers.

Amazing that I slogged my way through 900 pages of the Baroque Cycle before deciding I couldn't take any more, and yet I still have no clue about this background story you mention.

Thankfully Anathem was not quite as unbearable, if no less overbearing.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[orkysoft]

It gets better after the first volume.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's exactly like in the book -- magical powers included!

Please move from our nerd section and go sit with the geeks or dorks. (If I needed another reason to skip reading Stephenson in favor of other authors, your post would do it.)

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Locke2005]

Neal Stephenson... didn't he write a book about the inevitable result of my skiing, "Snowcrash"?

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[MichaelSmith]

When I go skiing its always "Treecrash".

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[glwtta]

I slogged my way through 900 pages of the Baroque Cycle

Well, that's what, like half of the first volume?

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[mattack2]

Sonny Bono, is that you? Posting to Slashdot from the great beyond?

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[bughunter]

Yes, I'm slogging my way thru King of the Vagabonds right now, so please - no spoilers!

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[bughunter]

Yes, and it's followed by my post-ski-vacation sequel, "Nocash."

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[sakdoctor]

Snape kills Dumbledore

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[nonguru]

Is it the writing style, the plotting or the concepts or all the above that's confusing?

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[SirThe]

Nooooooo you bitch, you bitch!

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[snoop.daub]

SPOILERS!!!!

If I'm remembering the story correctly (it's been a while since I read them), the denser gold had a different, more closely packed crystal structure than regular gold, the atoms themselves weren't different.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Rich0]

In the extended Star Trek canon dilithium was commonly mistaken for quartz. So, we have prior art on this one. :)

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Coren22]

Some people just don't appreciate the length, I never had an issue with it and rather enjoyed the books, but the Cycle split up into three books each took me about a month, which is quite a long read for me.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Coren22]

Or one of the Kennedys; skiing + football should have been a bad idea to them you would think...

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Coren22]

I don't know if they ever went into that. It was a heavier gold though, but still gold. It was supposed to be Solomon's gold.

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[PCM2]

Where did I say I was confused?

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[nonguru]

My mistake. I should have written "out of your depth" or "beyond your ken".

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

NUOOOOOOOooooooooo........ !!!

Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle

[PCM2]

Nothing of the kind. The Baroque Cycle is merely needlessly long, poorly plotted, a disingenuous mixture of research and complete fabrication, and worst of all, it is deadly, deadly dull. Stephenson has had some successes but this isn't one of them.

Yes

[SuperKendall]

Simply boil all your gold into vapor, and you'll have an even more valuable collection of roentgenium. You won't be able to see it, but it's there, trust me.

If you have any further questions you can ask my operative, conveniently located outside your house looking after a totally unrelated condensing jar.

Re:Yes

[Gofyerself]

You must be from Nigeria.

Re:Yes

[davester666]

And I will be happy to recycle that vaporized gold for you, just so the neighbourhood children don't accidentally inhale it.

Re:Yes

[black_lbi]

Step2: Sell the roentgenium.
Step3: Buy more gold?

Why just with Gold?

[Froggels]

If it does exist could it also be found along side other elements in similar quantities?

Re:Why just with Gold?

[etinin]

It is closer chemically to gold, therefore gold would be a good starting place.

Prior work was flawed

[kiwix]

Here is what Wikipedia says about the previous discovery of Unbibium by this the team:

In 2008, it was claimed to have been discovered in natural thorium samples[1] but that claim has now been dismissed by recent repetitions of the experiment using more accurate techniques.

Re:Prior work was flawed

[wizardforce]

Yeah... pretty much... At least Unbibium was somewhat more plausible being closer to the island of relative stability; element 111 isn't even close in nuclear terms.

Re:Prior work was flawed

[careysub]

Here is what Wikipedia says about the previous discovery of Unbibium by this the team:

In 2008, it was claimed to have been discovered in natural thorium samples[1] but that claim has now been dismissed by recent repetitions of the experiment using more accurate techniques.

This is like the guy who keeps claiming new record-shattering high temperature superconductors which are are never confirmed by anyone (and who keeps showing up on Slashdot). Far-fetched claims from Arxiv.org should be prominently flagged as suspect if they are going t get posted here. I have yet to see one pan out.

Re:Prior work was flawed

[Yvanhoe]

How so ?
On the contrary it is almost exactly on the peak :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Island-of-Stability.png

Re:Prior work was flawed

[wizardforce]

111 has an odd number of protons which is strike number one. odd numbers of protons or neutrons are much less stable and strike number two is that the island of stability is for the most part concerning stability against fission and alpha radiation decay.
Strike number three is that the stability of isotopes of element 111 are markedly less stable than isotopes of elements 114-116

Re:Prior work was flawed

[Yvanhoe]

It was an honest question, I know close to nothing about nuclear physics...
The wikipedia picture is very incorrect then ? I see no tendency on it for odd numbers of protons to bring instability and no element in the 114-116 range is picture as having any sort of stability...

Also, according to this graph ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Table_isotopes_en.svg ) alpha decay and fission seem to be the only decays happening in these regions, no ?

Re:Prior work was flawed

[wizardforce]

Take a look at this.

Another factor affecting the stability of a nucleus is whether the number of protons and neutrons is even or odd. Among the 354 known stable isotopes, 157 (almost half) have an even number of protons and an even number of neutrons. Only five have an odd number of both kinds of nucleons

The reason why this is so is that nuclei just like atoms in chemistry have shells (in chemistry it's electrons with nuclei it's protons and neutrons) filled shells are more stable which is why there is an island of stability. The island of stability is centered around the magic numbers 114 (the number of protons) and 184 (the number of neutrons) magic numbers of either protons or neutrons tend to create more stable nuclei. nuclei with odd numbers of either are less stable in the same way that Fluorine is less stable chemically compared to Neon. The nuclear shell is not full and is therefore less stable to various modes of decay.

Your point concerning alpha and fission modes of decay is more likely to increase the half life significantly excluding electron capture and beta decay modes.

elements 114-116 have isotopes with half lives that are significantly higher than nuclei in the 100-113 range as these lower nuclei tend to have half lives measured in fractions of a second. The island of stability is a misnomer. It'd be far more accurate to say that it is an island of relative not absolute stability. The odds of finding any nuclei beyond uranium with a comparable half life or even stable nuclei is remote.

Re:Prior work was flawed

[Lawrence_Bird]

I was about to post that this group does not strike me as a power house in nuclear research in particular heavy elements. Ultimately as wiki points out, this will be tested by others and I suspect the outcome probably the same. If not, kudos to their team.

I feel this is dubious

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous discovery of Element 122 in thorium was shown to be incorrect at higher levels of accuracy; thus, it seems unlikely that this one will bear fruit, especially since roentgenium shouldn't be stable for more than seconds.
It still may bear out, but I consider that extremely unlikely.

Re:I feel this is dubious

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous cowards should not use the word "I": it has no antecedent.

Re:I feel this is dubious

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous discovery of Element 122 in thorium was shown to be incorrect at higher levels of accuracy; thus, it seems unlikely that this one will bear fruit, especially since roentgenium shouldn't be stable for more than seconds.
It still may bear out, but I consider that extremely unlikely.

He considers this more likely. That is why he is doing this. At least read the summary. New things happen everyday. Just need to keep an open enough mind.

Re:I feel this is dubious

[Anonymous Coward]

We disagree.

Re:I feel this is dubious

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous cowards should not use the word "I": it has no antecedent.

Fuck you, asshole. "You" has an antecedent.

Error in TFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor issue here, but TFA disagrees with TFS.

Article says this guy held a vacuum above liquid gold, not boiling gold. The vacuum encourages evaporation by raising the vapor pressure of gold (and removing gas phase atoms there), but not to boiling. The difference between the melting and boiling points for gold is 1800K at 1 atm.

Re:Error in TFS

[MichaelSmith]

How could liquid gold not boil, if it is in a vacuum?

Re:Error in TFS

[zygotic mitosis]

As a chemistry undergrad currently studying physical chemistry...

He holds the liquid gold at 1127C. It would take an approximate pressure of 2.1 * 10^-7 atm for liquid gold to boil at 1127C. Now, it strikes me as very unlikely that he is using a close-to-perfect vacuum for this, especially since running any vacuum at all will encourage evaporation, but without further data, who knows, right?

Re:Error in TFS

[treeves]

Simple - it could be below the boiling point. It's not like every liquid boils at 1K just because it's in a vacuum.

Re:Error in TFS

[Hognoxious]

It can evaporate without boiling.

Re:Error in TFS

[treeves]

Most definitely. That's what theyre talking about.

Re:Error in TFS

[uigrad_2000]

Minor issue here, but TFA disagrees with TFS.

The difference between the melting and boiling points for gold is 1800K at 1 atm.

What does that have to do with this discussion? I thought the whole point was that he was at 0 atm.

Boiling is done two different ways. One is raising the temperature, the other is decreasing the pressure of surrounding gas

*boils Krugerrands*

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey what the hell?! They dissolved in the water!

Re:*boils Krugerrands*

[istartedi]

Those would be a poor choice, since they're "crown gold". This is an alloy with copper, which makes the coin more durable. As for dissolving, this is possible if the "water" was actually aqua regia--a particular type of acid that dissolves gold.

Then again, perhaps your Krugerrands are only gold on the outside, with a chocolate center. A terrible ripoff. It wouldn't be so bad, except that the chocolate they put in those coins is some of the worst candy ever. Even when I was a kid I was like, "Blech!".

Marinov "lead" the team?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another Slashdot submission/summary with the usual lousy grammar...

And I'm sure there's a gold into lead joke in there somewhere.

But can it be used for

[david.emery]

Cold Fusion??? ;-)

Re:But can it be used for

[Anonymous Coward]

Codfusion is dead! Long live PHP!

Those who don't know their history...

[Locke2005]

Are we doomed to a repeat of the Fleischmann-Pons experiment every few years?

Re:Those who don't know their history...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we doomed to a repeat of the Fleischmann-Pons experiment every few years?

Hopefully, yes.

That's how science makes progress. We don't know in advance whether some particular discovery is accurate or not. Others have to verify it for themselves first. If there were no negative "confirmations" that would be ... well, I think the word is "impossible".

It's part of the process.

Re:Those who don't know their history...

[PatrickThomson]

It's at least plausible. We're so set up to detect superheavy radioactives, what happens if an elemental synthesis procedure actually produces a stable superheavy nucleus (embedded at 1 part in 10^10 in a metal target)? No decay, no detection.

What is this story tagged Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this story tagged Russia? A. Marinov is associated with Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Re:What is this story tagged Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

What indeed?

Re:What is this story tagged Russia?

[Dr. Spork]

Yeah, we all know that in Soviet Russia, the gold boils you.

Same guy refuted in '08 and '70s about new element

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember, last time this guy said he had something in 2008, it was refuted pretty strongly. He also made a claim in the 70s that turned out to be bogus.

Last time, the network of blogs that brought up skepticism got a lot of comments about how Israelis are smarter by genetic disposition. It was really weird.

For example, this, but I can't find the others I remember reading.

So, probably shouldn't give this guy too much attention, he's not a very good scientist it seems.

 

New material for armored vehicles?

[dimeglio]

I believe this is denser than uranium. Is Israel planning to eventually build specially equipped armored vehicles?

Re:New material for armored vehicles?

[Magada]

No, they're hoping the isomer is meta-stable so they can make atomic hand-grenades.

"the resulting mess"

[pcardno]

Wow. Great scientific summary. Why is it a "mess"? Surely it's the output of one carefully controlled process that led to another carefully controlled process that resulted in a particular outcome. Or isn't it? Surely boiling an element in a vacuum is a pretty clean way of doing things? If it's a "mess", then the whole thing is clearly a load of old nonsense.

Either state the results or make it clear it's an editorial. Don't mix them up. Otherwise it's a mess.

Re:"the resulting mess"

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem, we'll just analyze it with our mess spectrometer.

Re:"the resulting mess"

[Just Some Guy]

Wow. Great scientific summary. Why is it a "mess"?

A definition of "mess": "An amount of food, as for a meal, course, or dish: cooked up a mess of fish." I've heard it used colloquially as a synonym for "batch" with ironically positive connotations, which is the context that the author used it in.

Re:"the resulting mess"

[Coren22]

Or, it can be used to mean not clean, as in my room is messy; my room is a mess

Re:"the resulting mess"

[Alsee]

The result was a "mess" because the vacuum evaporation process served to concentrate the random impurities within the gold sample.

If you look at the article you'll see a few examples of the random junk found in the remaining reside. Based on mass spectroscopy just a few of the contaminants were identified as 133Cs128Te, 197Au64Zn, 209Bi52Cr, 238U23Na, and 138Th(14N2)1H. That's merely the stuff in mess that was close to the target mass.

I'm not an expert on mass spectroscopy, but I do have a pretty good understand of how they work. It precisely weighs components of your sample. Each isotope of each element has a precise known weight, and a molecule will be a sum of the weights of the atoms within it. If you have a strong signal (multiple detections) you can pretty much ignore rare isotopes and easily get a yes/no answer whether a low (but non-singular) quantity of some specific element or molecule exists in your sample. Based on the graph image he appears to be operating at a level of singular atom/molecule detection. He appears to have detected a single molecule of each of the contaminants listed above, along with a single detection that he claims represents a single atom of this super heavy element. Dealing with a singular detection is much more troublesome. You have to rule out EVERY possible combination of elements and isotopes that could sum to that weight in a molecular unit, plus the slim chance that some stray event triggered a random-value false detection.

If we ignore isotopes for a moment, there are 92 normal natural elements. There are 92*92=8,462 possible weights for a 2 atom combination. There are 92*92*92=778,688 possible weights for a 2 atom combination. There are 71,639,296 possible weights for a 3 atom combination. Note that one of his detections - 138Th(14N2)1H - was attributed as a 4 atom combination. There are 6,590,815,232 possible weights for a 4 atom combination. The possible weight-sums explode geometrically if you consider a 5 atom combination, and it explodes geometrically when you factoring in the weights of different isotopes of the various elements.

It seems to be a statistical certainty that there exists some combination of atoms that would have added up to this particular weight, a group of atoms that would mimic the detection of a single super heavy atom.

Assuming that his paper backs up his report with good scientific methods then this probably warrants further independent investigation. However at this point I'd say there is a very low chance that this claim will pan out. It is almost certain that what he detected was actually a multi-atom cluster of random contaminants that just happened to match the expected weight of a super heavy atom.

There are certain super-heavy elements that we have good reason to suspect may exist - the theorized island of stability. However this claimed element lies well outside that island of stability. For example even numbers are generally more stable because particles can pair up in a more stable quantum mechanical way. This is supposedly element 111 - it has an odd number of protons. It is expected to be generally less stable than element 110 or 112. The claimed mass also has an unusually low number of neutrons. Neutrons act as sort of a glue helping to bind the protons together. For this reason as well this atom is not expected to be a stable element. The chances of this paper being a valid result are wildly remote.

Papers appearing on Arxiv are really cool for giving us a peek into scientific research as it's happening, but it also means we're getting a peek into lots of weak or flawed results. We're looking at papers before they have been critically examined by the scientific peer review process. Arxiv papers must be cautiously taken as "interesting maybes" at best, and much be taken with a very skeptical eye when the results are anything other than mere experimental confirmation of things that scientists already expected to be true.

-

Solomonic gold?

[Bilestoad]

So Stephenson's "solomonic gold" may be based in fact?

replacing depleted uranium

[Khopesh]

I believe this is denser than uranium. Is Israel planning to eventually build specially equipped armored vehicles?

Correct, Rt is 111, U is 92.

My first thought was along the same lines; replacing depleted uranium with stable Roentgenium would be safer, more politically acceptable, and perhaps even cheaper.

... my second thought is that this is too good to be true; it flies in the face of a lot of established assumptions on the elements and its proof could lead to some large revisions to how we understand things work. Occam's razor suggests this is too improbable to be true.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[lgw]

Tungsten is used instea of depleted uranium. Hardness matters more than density for weapons. Not that there's any special danger associated with depleted uranium in the envronment - like lead, it causes problems, but no more than any other bullet.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Dr. Spork]

Also, Uranium is not the densest naturally occuring element. It's not just about the atomic mass, it's also about the crystal structure. Osmium packs the atoms much more tightly, so it is way denser than Uranium.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Yvanhoe]

What would be more politically acceptable about replacing a relatively stable material like depleted uranium by a highly radioactive material like Rt ? Island of stability or not, we are talking about an element that would have a shorter half-life than uranium, especially depleted, and that would emit mainly alpha-ray (the less penetrating but the most deadly).

The claim that it would be cheaper is a bit surprising too : there are mines of uranium...

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Anonymous Coward]

Atomic mass? Crystal structure? No, price. Uranium: $60/lb Osmium $400/oz

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[treeves]

So, the price determines the density? Ha. Kidding.

Dr. Spork was simply refuting the logic that Khopesh used when he assumed that Roentgenium was denser than Uranium simply based on its atomic number. There are many elements with higher atomic number than Osmium but none denser (that we know of).

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there are problem with using Uranium in the environment. There's absolutely nothing depleted about it except its use as a fuel. It's depleted of the U-235 isotope, that's all.

It needs to be banned but America, UK, France and Israel keep blocking it at every turn. Only civilised nations like Belgium have managed to net a ban.

IAAP, btw and this article in question is HIGHLY dubious.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[jvonk]

Not that there's any special danger associated with depleted uranium in the envronment

You are correct that pure DU would essentially be no more hazardous than other types of heavy metal pollution. However, the situation is more complex in reality.

Quoth the WHO:

Spent uranium fuel from nuclear reactors is sometimes reprocessed in plants for natural uranium enrichment. Some reactor-created radioisotopes can consequently contaminate the reprocessing equipment and the DU. Under these conditions another uranium isotope, 236U, may be present in the DU together with very small amounts of the transuranic elements plutonium, americium and neptunium and the fission product technetium-99. However, the additional radiation dose following intake of DU into the human body from these isotopes would be less than 1%.

Somehow, I don't find that very reassuring ("Yay! Heavy metal toxicity with a side of biosequestered alpha & beta emitters!"). It seems much more likely that spent-fuel DU production would have less quality control care than the original enrichment process, but I could very well be mistaken.

I have heard it alleged that only the US uses spent reactor fuel to create DU for weapons and that other countries that produce DU weapons use only the byproduct from the enrichment stage. However, since I have no cite at the moment, I wouldn't assign that much credulity. Regardless, it does seem that in practice DU is not always pure as the driven snow.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Anonymous Coward]

Heavy metal pollution?

What are you, a Justin Bieber fan?

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[lgw]

So, yeah, it's about as dangerous as lead (even if we believe your non-link, and the impurities were significant in the source metal, they stop being so after a few years). There's this fear about DU because "it's radioactive", and we've all seen what that means in movies. I would have hoped for better from Slashdotters, but see upthread. Compare to the safety of HESH rounds (the usual favorite of tankers), which occasionally fail to explode right away.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[Khopesh]

What would be more politically acceptable about replacing a relatively stable material like depleted uranium by a highly radioactive material like Rt ? Island of stability or not, we are talking about an element that would have a shorter half-life than uranium, especially depleted, and that would emit mainly alpha-ray (the less penetrating but the most deadly).

The claim that it would be cheaper is a bit surprising too : there are mines of uranium...

The definition of a stable isotope is that of not being detectably radioactive.

Depleting the radioactivity of uranium is quite expensive. The resulting product also isn't fully safe, which is why most nations classify DU as poisonous and therefore illicit in combat.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[jvonk]

Would I be concerned about a machined sailboat keel made of DU? Not at all. Would I be concerned about an area that has been covered by aerosolized DU dust that has highly radioactive impurities? Certainly. This is what happens in the wake of a DU kinetic energy penetrator strike on armor.

PS. if a radioactive impurity stops being significant "after a few years" then by definition it is quite radioactive. Radioactivity is nifty that way... the more radioactive the isotope, the shorter the half-life. I would have hoped for better understanding about radioactivity from Slashdotters who advocate how "benign" DU is.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[lgw]

But that's just it - the odds of a DU making it from source material to target in less than a few years are quite small indeed. If the DU is pure, there was never more of a problem than lead to begin with (not that aerosolized lead is a nice thing to spray the countryside with). If the DU has radioactice imputities of any significance, it won't still have them after a few years, so still no worse than lead.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[jvonk]

Eh, I still would find it concerning if I were a grunt in the area of a recent armor battle (or, say, an A-10 Gatling CAS strike). It also seems that chelation therapy isn't as effective for uranium as it is for other heavy metals. I also imagine there is less treatment data about acute uranium toxicity than there is for, say, lead. Again, I admit that my expertise in heavy metal toxicity is vanishingly small.

Please understand I am not a breathless radiation paranoiac. In fact, I disclaim my positions as opinion when appropriate and I didn't edit that WHO quote that indicated only a 1% marginal risk from spent-fuel sourced DU.

I am an advocate of nuclear technology. I live within 15 miles of a nuclear power plant and feel perfectly safe (with the exception of reports of how inept the machinegun-armed guards are). I would feel safe even if the plant were immediately adjacent to my home. This is just very different in my mind than exposure (pulmonary especially) to aerosolized, potentially spent-fuel sourced DU dust. More so than lead.

Perhaps we can civilly agree to disagree.

Re:replacing depleted uranium

[lgw]

Sure, just wanted to add one thought: if you were a grunt in the area where an enemy tank was recently destroyed by an A10, I'm certain you would find it joyful (I know I would). Nothing like the threat of immediate death to clarify one's priorities.

Your periodic table...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're holding it sideways.

Would this gold also be known as Solomonic gold?

[arkham6]

Appologies to Neil Stephenson :)

Do me a favour.

[drolli]

In articles about science always follow at least to the original article or the preprint and state that explicitly. I am sick and tired of "i am only citing the blog where i found it and not bothering to tell (or check?) if its published, preprint, or just buzz".

This one seems to relate to a preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.6510

I am by no means expert on mass spectrometry by some thing they are doing seem strange. I will look at it when a referee examined it for PRL (to which its obviously submitted)

Re:Do me a favour.

[nonguru]

Why, are you owed some special favours from Slashdot readers?

Re:Do me a favour.

[drolli]

Yes Slashdot readers owe the favor of not doing slashretweets as articles. If you like to keeps the buzzosphere buzzing, you are welcome. Facebook seems to have a "like it" button and twitters only purpose seems to be right that.

Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave

[Anonymous Coward]

Get with the program scientists and go build a prismatic accelerator in your basement, you'll find the island of stability in tactile amounts quick.

For armor, what mostly counts

[ridgecritter]

is the bond energy and fracture mechanics. For example, ceramic armor breaks into lots of very small particles when hit by a projectile: each fracture surface is created using energy from the incoming projectile, and hence dissipates the projectile's energy. Ceramics aren't very dense compared to tungsten or DU, but their fracture energies are very high. Density counts for projectiles because it's one of the parameters that determines the pressure at the impact point, which in turn is one of the parameters that predicts penetration efficacy. Tungsten is a little more dense than DU, not significantly so for projectile use. A DU projectile will catch fire when it penetrates armor, contributing to its destructive effects. Tungsten doesn't do this. DU is a low-level radiological hazard, tungsten isn't, so for cleaning up after a battle, tungsten is a better choice. DU may have some low-level chemical toxicity, but there's evidence that tungsten (when imbedded as particles under skin) is toxic as well. I speculate the choice of D vs W for projectiles is mainly economic (unless you need to incinerate the occupants of that tank you're killing), as I think DU is cheaper than W.

Re:For armor, what mostly counts

[Carnildo]

Depeleted uranium is cheaper than tungsten if and only if you've got an active nuclear industry. DU is a waste product of uranium enrichment, where tungsten is an industrially-important metal.

Extraordinary claims...

[Platinum Dragon]

Wake me when there is independent confirmation of this claim reported somewhere other than arXiv.

unobta'i'nium would be even nicer

[Marbleless]

Brought to you by the letter I and a spelling nazi ;)

Re:unobta'i'nium would be even nicer

[Dialecticus]

Brought to you by the letter I and a spelling nazi ;)

I left out the extra i intentionally because it results in a more proper spelling which also looks more like a real element name, such as titanium or germanium, whereas there are no real element names which end in ainium. The "correction" you suggest is actually an alternate form.

I'm afraid you'll have to turn in your spelling nazi license now. ;)

co-author is a loonie

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the co-authors is "R.V. Gentry", who has a long history (back to the 60's and 70's) of trying to support creationism with wacky interpretations of radiation-damage halos in samples of mica.

Doesn't mean that THIS is wrong, but people rarely get *more* sane in their old age.

"Is he on to something, or overlooking [...]"

[RichiH]

Honestly, I don't care. It sounds interesting either way!

I'm missing something

[sean.peters]

How does the presence of a previously unknown stable state make this such a great energetic material? For this to be the case, there would have to be a big energy difference between the stable and unstable states, and if that were the case, all of the stuff in the unstable state would promptly convert to the stable state.

And in any case, we've already got lots of really good energetic materials for rockets and/or bombs that are a lot easier to make than roentgenium.

Re:I'm missing something

[MichaelSmith]

I am thinking it would be more like uranium. If this state of roentgenium is rare and barely stable then injecting a small amount of energy may lead to it decaying to a different state and releasing a lot more energy.

Holy crap, who could possibly afford it?

[sean.peters]

Dude, this material, even if the theory of stable roentgenium is correct (and realistically, it's probably not) would be found in the amounts of a few atoms per gold nugget. So there's not enough of this stuff on earth to make a shotgun pellet, much less a tank. You'd have to make it synthetically in particle accelerators. And that would take an eternity and cost a fortune, if it was possible at all.