Slashdot Mirror
Meet Ununseptium, Best Contender Yet For Element 117
From Motherboard comes this description of what may turn out to be the newest entry on the periodic table,
newly synthesized element 117, created by researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research of Darmstadt, Germany, and described in results published this week in Physical Review Letters. From the article:
"Element 117 has been temporarily given the very literal name ununseptium (one-one-seven in Latin), and will only honored with a real name once the the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Chemistry (IUPAPC) confirms its synthesis at the GSI accelerator. Ununseptium is 40 percent heavier than lead, making it on par with the heaviest atoms ever observed. ... Its properties seem to confirm that the existence of the so-called “island of stability”—a theory suggesting that the half-lives of superheavy isotopes will lengthen as their atomic numbers increase further away from uranium. Any element with an atomic number greater than 103 is considered superheavy (or in the 'transactinide class,' if you prefer the scientific jargon). Transactinides can only be observed artificially in a laboratory, and synthesizing them is no easy task."
Note: that "real name" process isn't a mere formality; just a few years ago, another attempt to synthesize a 117th element looked promising enough to be declared done, but could not be confirmed with the IUPAPC's tests.
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.172501
Posting as AC so as not to karma-whore.
- Esteanil
Proper link to paper
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Trying to think of some practical applications for this discovery. Perhaps this would be better than depleted uranium in anti tank ammo, or as shielding from radiation on long space journeys?
From a scientific point of view anyway. From Predator 2: "This doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table." Really? I'd propose naming a new element Hollywoodium but I think that would introduce more problems than it would solve.
Ununseptium sounds like a nasal condition caused by the consumption of cocaine.
Does anybody know the half life?
Does it have 117 protons or not?!
Well with a name like that, it's not like there was much competition. Ununhexium tried, but he just didn't have enough in him.
The new element sounds like the mythical and incredibly expensive material IBM uses to manufacture incredibly expensive and easily breakable parts: Unobtainium. You can't get anything that is similar. The part is unique, fragile, and worth millions per copy (half the cost of the entire assembly).
I'll be honest, I had to read that a few times to really understand the thought process behind it, but that's a really interesting, and entirely plausible classification... I need to do more research.
Meanwhile, the "IUPAPC" was still operating under their very literal name, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Chemistry. They have applied with the Advanced Center Reportedly Of Naming Your Movement (ACRONYM), however the application is still pending certification.
Don Head
UNIX/Linux Administrator
I think Spartainum-117 is a pretty cool element,
Eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything.
However, Elerium was supposed to be 115, and they just wouldn't let it happen, so...
Hereby declare support for naming Ununtrium (element 113) as:
Pixarium
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
It's an obvious thing, yet apparently wilfully ignored: Dalton, the first scientist to come up with a recognisable modern atomic theory, is not honoured in the naming of the elements, yet all sorts of (no doubt worthy, but obscure) physicists have been, and even having their universities honoured (Berkelium, Lawrencium, etc). It's really about time this oversight was corrected. Personally I feel it should have been done for something a lot more common and 'early', but as we're now mopping up the tail-enders, so be it.
Let's hear it for Daltonium!
It's May the 4th, this element has the highest Protonian count ever observed, so I suggest Anakinium.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I'll be honest, I had to read that a few times to really understand the thought process behind it, but that's a really interesting, and entirely plausible classification... I need to do more research.
(We're talking about THIS MESSAGE , in case Slashdot's moderators have completely hidden it from view) Thanks kindly for reading it. I feel like I'm in a schoolyard surrounded by bullies. For one thing, you cannot mention sheep these days without jabbing emotional buttons and hasty readers think you are trying to be insulting and lobbing -1 Flamebait epithets at people. Sheep as in counting sheep. We're talking about ordinal numbers, counting sheep. I'm not trying to insult anyone! Get it? Good. Baaaah.
Numerical prime-ness also crops up in dimension count. We directly perceive the existence of a 'stable' 3-dimensional space. The most elaborate universe model that has yet been constructed on a backboard is M-Theory and Supersymnetry which posits a maximum of 11 dimensions of spacetime which may include 7 higher dimensions, interaction between membranes of 2 and 5 dimensions --- I'm not trying to knit it all together or declare it sound, merely pointing out the obvious prevalence of primes.
So is our reality built upon a quiet firmament of ordinal components... like a delicate machine constructed by a patient hand on a table in a room somewhere, which is sending you down the rabbit hole again because you have to ask, where did all that order come from?
Or does our reality consist a stable island in a sea of chaos, its apparent-stability arising from the perfect mathematical resonance of primes that cannot be factored? Perhaps... the exchange of energies in higher-than-three dimensions creating a fractal noise that would have reduced everything to noise, by a process akin to factorization, if it were not for the meta-existence of prime-ness?
That's the question I'm having a difficult time putting out to everyone here.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I again politely ask the next door scientists to consider naming the new element for the castle ruin just south of Darmstadt. Frankensteinium has such a nice ring to it.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
For a moment there, I thought they discovered Unobtainium and thought... wtf, we'll be drilling for the core of the earth soon... :)
Johnium, referencing the Halo series of course. The Master Chief is also known as John-117.
And last I checked, there isn't an element starting with ''J'' yet.
Công ty chúng tôi chuyên nhn mc máy in góa r nht, cht lng mc in hoàn toàn m bo, chuyên mc máy in cácloi may in Canon, Hp, Samsung, brother,..... Dch v mc máy in uy tin, chúng tôi s n ngay sau khi khách hàng liên h. Vi i ng nhân viên kinh nghim quáy khác s yên tâm khi n vi chúng tôi. Mi thông tin xin lin h http://thaymucmayin.litado.vn/