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New element produced Z=114
Anonymous Coward writes "American and Russian scientists claim to have produced a new element with 114 protons. Apparently this discovery could lead to a new family of superheavy and stable elements. What are these exotic element used for anyhow? No name for this new element has been mentioned. Any suggestions? The article requires Physics World access."
Bloated, superheavy element? Sounds like Windows. Windowsium?
First hint of element 114 seen in Dubna
[Friday January 29] A team of Russian and American scientists believe they may have created an element with 114 protons, the heaviest ever. If confirmed, this discovery would point to the existence of a whole new family of highly stable "superheavy" elements.
Researchers at the Dubna Laboratory of Heavy Ion Nuclear Reactions in Russia, headed by Yuri Oganessian, collaborating with a team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, made the discovery by firing a rare isotope of calcium at a plutonium target. They bombarded the plutonium-244 day and night for a month, finding one "event" of the sort they were looking for. The subsequent sequence of decays three alpha-particle emissions followed by spontaneous fission has never been seen before and is unique to the superheavy-element region. This rarest of isotopes had an atomic mass of 289 and survived for 30 seconds before decaying.
The existence of element 114 is important because it would offer strong evidence for the long-sought-after superheavy "magic island" of stability first predicted in the 1960s. The most stable isotope on the island is though to have 114 protons, 184 neutrons (nine more than the Dubna isotope), and a half-life measured in millions of years, albeit with large error bars.
"The creation of this element puts us only on the shore of the island," says Albert Ghiorso, a nuclear scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US. "But its discovery is enormously important since it shows that the putative island is really there."
However, Ken Moody, leader of the US team, is still not 100% convinced by the result. "You have to consider the possibility of random events correlating to give you something that looks like a real event," he says. Moody hopes that within the next couple of weeks he will be able to say for sure whether element 114 really has been created in Dubna.
user: drbob / pass: coward
LINUXIUM?
Heh, sounds like that guy that claims he worked on reverse-engineering UFOs for the U.S. gov't. I dont believe what he said one bit, but its still cool that there may be an island of stability around elements 114-116. Mayhaps lotsa cool things could come of that
Didn't he say that the drive used element #114 to create antimatter by bombarding it with protons?
Yea, yeah, I know, if it says--[antigravity|freeenergy|coldFusion]--it must be a kook, but hey, Im getting tired of the "standard" model.
--darkharlequin, too lazy to log in...
just you wait.. element 115 - the stuff of dreams
any login/password accounts?
I thought bob Lazar said it was element 115 that the "Sports Model" was powered by.
AndyJ@Innocent.com
Antimatter is used in everyday work by some
physicists. Ok, not exactly casually, but
our accelerators constantly crank the stuff out.
What would the point of making antimatter on
a spaceship be, though? It takes as much energy
to make it (at least) as you get out from its use.
(Due to the conservation of mass/energy.) A nice
bag 'o antimatter might make a good battery for a
trip, but it's no magic power source.
A Physicist
Depleted uranium is already used in some armor piercing shells for the incredible momentum it carries. This new stuff will be even better. And if this stuff is stable. THere's no radioactive worries. Yeah!
...what's the betting of it being patented?
=)
Chemical engineers? why even ask them?
This is physics baby!
(of course all of chemistry falls under applied
physics anyway) until you can make enough
of it, or make it exist with a half life
of more than a second, it is impossible
to study its chemical properties (tho they can
be guessed at)
Chemists don't matter until it is at least
somewhat stable.
Let them sue Anonymous Coward.
/. is unique in this sense. It's unique because of the topics that it reports, and the clientel. May be Anonymous Coward should post it on zdnet and let them sue Ziff-Davis also? I'd like to see them try that!
There are many sites that allow anonymous message posting. I don't think
They need to honor a few more physicists, then Linusiam or Linuxiam.
c a f f e i n e i u m
ohh yes, a tribute to the worlds most favorite toxin!@# can't live without it
Isn't that a double negative?
why would you use something created by the millionth of the gram?
remember: unlike other fields, high-energy physics research is not done with next year's product launch in mind.
byiieeee!!
Oh yeah, you wouldn't want to give cancer to all those people you just shot.
comments on suggestions below...no doubt breaking threads and p*ssing people off...
... or TEOFTWAWKIUM...
LINUXIUM -- hmm...the element is far too heavy...114 protons? something that big should be named NT5ium
SLASHDOTIUM -- only if it exhibits the "/. effect", if it fades into obscurity it would be better to name it after something that is technically cool but now largely irrelevant...how about "NeXtium"
Personally I'm for giving it a Y2K spin...
MILLENIUM
The Iraqi's used depleted uranium because it was a cheap byproduct of producing weapons grade uranium. This new element won't be cheap.
Also, the depleated uranium has caused serious birth defects. If you want to see a serious ecological disaster in action, pay attention to Iraq over the next 5-10 years.
A nice bag 'o antimatter might make a good battery for a trip,
what would you make the "bag" out of?! magnetic fields or something? i assume it wouldn't be safe or practical to keep it in an old sock . . .
I Once Sat Next to a Physicist on the Bus
> This rarest of isotopes had an atomic mass of
> 289 and survived for 30 seconds before
> decaying.
Extremely heavy, and doesn't last long before decaying. Sounds more and more like Windows all the time.
Microsoftium? NTium?
It's obvious to anyone familiar with the Word of God that the these sinful Homo Elements are physically, chemically, and psychologically unstable. They cannot be trusted, but they can change and turn their lives around if they accept the Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts and send ten dollars to the Church of the Sacred Bleating Heart of Jesus located somewhere in Los Angeles California and all their dreams WILL COME TRUE!
It's obvious to anyone familiar with the Word of God that the these sinful Homo Elements are physically, chemically, and psychologically unstable. They cannot be trusted, but they can change and turn their lives around if they accept the Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts and send ten dollars to the Church of the Sacred Bleating Heart of Jesus located somewhere in Los Angeles California and all their dreams WILL COME TRUE!
:)
You're right, I apologize!
:)
BOY, that's filling!
"I thought all of those homo elements"...
wad, you're a f*ing s*head.
go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.
yeah but this one's more stable than all the others
Torvaldium or Stalmanium?
Lazar said it was orange. When they make 115 and it's orange we'll know whether Lazar is telling the truth.
isn't Seaborg still alive?
did i touch a nerve? relax, someone told me jesus was a fag, so cheer up..
what on earth are you yabbering about?
your first post was funny, 'cause applying the word "homo" to elements indicates either a weird sense of humor, or idiocy so deep as to be harmless (and therefore entertaining). now, unfortunately, i've written you off as a twit.
RussAmerium - signifies both the team countries name!!
Well, actually, a really BIG, really strong magnetic sock. Without the sock.
I've never sat next to a physicist on the bus, but I play someone who did on television.
I've just bought a shotgun and
I'm ready to to the Lord's work.
Son, I am delighted to hear that! The Prince of Peace sure does love 0-0 buckshot, heh heh heh!
Where are these Homo elements?
My dear Christian brother, they are all around us, in every town in this Atheistic God-Rejecting formerly great Yewnited States of ours! You just start shootin' that gun of yours any old which way and you're bound to catch a few of 'em. God bless ya for doin' the Lord's work with me.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Dr. Anonymous Coward, DDL, DDS, DSO, DMSO, DDE
there you go, trying to apply logic to english -
it just doesn't work!
Not only did he predict that well, Most intellectuals would not be using his language until the 1980's or 90's.
Way ahead of his time.
(I stumbled across a paper on the net written by a 'doctor' that liberally used sophisticated words like 'sh*t', 'lame' 'fsck', etc.)
The thing is, Uranium is naturally occuring and relativly abundant, while this new element will have to be produced in laboratories at great expense. Plus, there still are radioactive worries, as the substance IS radioactive.
Simple, a spacecraft needs to be as light as possible to make extremely long voyages quickly. There are certainly other solutions (ion propulsion, solar sails, etc) but if you had a source of energy such as anti-matter you could have some sort of engine that could maintain a thrust longer. Maybe even maintain a 1G thrust all the way there (turning around halfway and decelerating the second half of the trip). That would also preclude the need of rotation if you wanted a large spacecraft that people would be living on for years. So, to answer your question, use the big accelerators and expend the energy here on earth and store it to be used on a large but lightweight spacecraft.
The use of the word homo as being a bad thing
I agree, very much, but IMHO using it WRT elements in the periodic table is so utterly absurd as to almost be funny again. I mean, it's just so far outside the bounds of anything meaningful that it doesn't bother me.
It implies that there is something wrong with being gay
Heh. Try explaining that point to somebody who can't admit that he's a bigot. Good luck.
Of course Bohr was k00l -- after all what would
you expect from a big-dick-dane? I really love
his argument with 1stein in which the latter
chickened out with a lame argument like
"God does play with dice!" (But I bet he fraggs
all day long.)
Theeeeese . . . untrustworthy elements . . . have invaded our homes . . . they are THRONGING IN OUR STREETS, mah frends, thronging in ourrrrr streeeetsss . . . suspicious elements, my fellow Americans, possibly radical elements and in some cases dare I even say it COMMUNIST ELEMENTS? Indeed. We must be ever vigilant, if we are to protect our SACRED FREEDOMS from these . . . elements.
he spoke and drank rapidly a glass of water.
Attention: Fearless Leader
Moose and Squvirrel have discovered new element Stop.
Will con Moose into givink us new element
using fake Whatsamatta U PhD. Stop.
Signed B. Baddenoff
Message Stop.
Poul Anderson used a source of superheavy elements as the maguffin in one of his early-70s SF novels.
In the book, "eka-Platinum" and other island-of-stability goodies were plated on a planet of a supernova'd star. (It started out as a gas giant; all that was left after the explosion was a core.) The stuff had all sorts of exotic uses, and a war broke out over the world.
Stefan
No, no, no. Chemists, not chemical engineers. Everybody knows that chemists are the experts on everything from cold fusion to biological computers. What would simple physicists, biologists, and computer scientists know about such things?
Ponds and Fleischmann are probably real busy right now using their cold fusion apparatus to generate mass quantities of orange element 115.
With the storage of this stuff?
I remember hearing about Pennington traps a while ago... is there anything 'radically' new?
just curious
We all know it, right? Some place like Italy is
going to get pissed over central bank control.
They will just start printing more money. To
protect themselves, other countries will invade
italy. This starts a little war. Various
alliances will make the little war grow HUGE.
Eventially, some pissed off country (France?)
will use nuclear weapons to retaliate.
Of course the next one has to be named Elirium (115).
No its 115 that you supposedly bombard with protons to get antimatter and gravity pulses.
Well, okay, maybe this isn't all that common; but at least it could be used for something:
Cheers,
ccg
chad at glendenin dot org
I enjoy calling things "gay", and using as many racial slurs as possible, just because I know how stupid it all is. If you judge on those criteria, you're nothing in my book anyway...
Stupid homo faggot jew nigger kike spic honky chink-gooks with no sense of humour, I say.
----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
Your honor is perfectly understandishable.
Posted by tid242:
:) ) etc etc. they kill a lot more people than U tipped shells being shot at some poor saps in tanks.
:( that should have been posted here on slashdot, was it? i was gone.
i don't feel like doing more than one reply, so please excuse.
yes the A-10 [warthog] uses U shells in it's 30mm anti-tank gun, those planes are the shit, the pilot sits in a titanium bathtub to survive ground fire, and the plane is designed to be able to fly around with half it's tail and only one engine, sort of a flying tank.... remember when one got stolen from that AF base down somewhere in S US somewhere? i think they found it crashed into a mountain a week or so later... anyway the point of this is that the M1-A1 (wahtever) Abrhams tank (the ones we used to drive over the branch dividian compount in waco a few years ago, and the ones we used in Desert Storm too) use U for armor.
"wonder where we make depleted U"
-it's a byproduct of nuclear reactors.
just because the elment is heavy doesn't necessaraly mean that it's gonna be incorperated into bullets and armor, depleted U is basically free since it is a byproduct or making enriched U anyway. ???-114 is probably not free nor will it be in the forseeable future since they had to "bombard it for a day and a night" to get any tangable amounts of it. so i wouldnt be worrying abuot health effects any time soon, you'd be better off worrying about real threats to your health like AIDS, Influenza, Malaria. (herpes, not a problem i use VALTREX! actually i just like the "we have herpes but we're fighting it together" commercial i always see
also worthy of interest is [in regards to the US vs Iraq deal] that prior to saddam's invasion of kuwait he specifically asked the US if we would do anything if he started invading his neighbors. we responded before congress by saying something along the lines of "if saddam would invade kuwait for example, the United States would probably turn our backs on the incident. . . " (mind you this is off the top of my head, i saw a documentry a few years back on like CNN or something) and now look, oh, gosh...now we have an excuse to have a couple of carriers and a few subs and several otehr ships floating around the persian gulf and red sea to make sure our oil supply is safe...
seem fishy? nah, i'm sure a government with as much to lose as America wouldn't to some under-the-table dealings to protect its assets. i mean that's not how buisnesses succede *cough* Micro$lut *clears throat* kinda makes you wonder if the fall of the asian economy might have been not completely "natural" considering indonesia was supposed to have like the biggest sky-scapers in teh world by 2002, and hong kong was supposed to have some of the best research labs in the world by 97/98 hm... that hasn't happened, and America's still pretty much ahead of the game still (note: this is not to say that tons of good shit still doesn't come from europe, japan, russia, etc... but you know what i mean)
and on a different note KMFDM officially disbanded on jan 22
the more i open my eyes the less i see.
Posted by tid242:
now just amalgamage the micro-machine idea with the anti-tank shell idea, and WHOOOLAH - you get anti-micro-machine-tank ammunition.
gosh that would make a great movie like all these military toys that hang around and think and stuff, that'll be a multi-million dollar idea....wait they already thought of it, "Toy Soldiers" --hm....nevermind that idea sucks.
:)
His claim is that you get an unstable element, which decays back to 115, releasing anti-matter as one of the decay products.
This would produce antimatter with considerably less energy than is currently required, if true.
That he managed to predict the stable island's location so well is impressive, although not conclusive, by any stretch of the imagination. He claims to be a physicist, and so could have worked out this stuff on his own. The implication of that, though, is that some of his other claims (MINUS the UFO aspect) may also be true and worth looking into.
If he's =that= good a physicist, I don't care if he claims he was told that element 115 was stable by a mulberry bush, whilst sunbathing in the Antarctic! IMHO, the =ONLY= important question, WRT Bob Lazar, is "=IS= he that good a physicist?"
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think they took it down, I get "no longer exists" now. Anyone have it in thier cache, I would like to read the whole thing.
Nevermind, I got it, all, saved it local, and now can read it, and show to others... I would mirror, but I don't think it's legql.
It's supposed to be "ununquadium." The most-recently developed elements have so far been named after the number of protons in their nuclei. Like unnilquadium (104), unnilhexium (106), and unnilpentium (104.99997568... hehe).
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
I thought all of those homo elements after 106 were only like theoretical, or could only be sustained in a laboratory environment for a few milliseconds.. Now this shit says they could lead to a new group of highly stable elements.. Although the stability of the element all comes down to it's charge or the number of electrons in it's outermost level. Oh well, I'm sure there are pleanty of chemical engineers who will tell me what the real deal is.
(Please pardon the momentary humor-impairment.)
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
They are using a material unknown in all Federation records!
Pardon my ignorance, but what about 110-113?
Did they skip those?
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I think you're referring to Chandrasekhar's constant, named for the Indian dude who "discovered" it.
:-) )
Also the name of the guy who built the Hal 9000 in 2001/2010. They shortened it to Dr. Chandra in the movie so they could cast a white guy. (we all know there are NO English speaking Indian actors, right?
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
>So I wonder where the Americans process their uranium?
They need energy. Lots of it. Centrifuges also require great underground space, such as used coal mines.
Look for any mostly undergroud government contractor that hase nice power lines running to it. The type of power lines to look for can run through the city on large metal poles, three phase heavy conductors, with very long insulators. The wires will hold close to the maximum voltage that can be held without escaping into weather conditions.
Imagine a small complex with a massive security retaining wall using billions of watts. Where does all that energy go? Its used underground. Such a small building would melt if it could use the capacity of that electrical line.
I know of one such building that uses an inordinate amount of electricity and does not seem to manufacture anything. "We are not involved in weapons production." Any casual observer should wonder what is going on.
OK, OK, nevermind.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
Someone makes a new element that's never existed in nature before, and before you know it, folks are designing a better bullet around it. :-/
I wanna pick myself a new species, this one sucks.
The only industrial use of "Man-Made" elements I know of
Well, it looked good on paper but tell me has anyone put one of these bad boys together and plugged it in?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
For those among who speak German or know how to use Babelfish, there is a brief article on this at:
http://www.vol.at/tmh/zr/na tional/wissen/news-19133.asp
Time Lord, Dark Horse: The Techno Mage of Gallifrey
Does anyone know were I could find more info about this theoretical new stable area?
--
When she told me I was average, she was just being mean.
IIRC, this guy was called Bob Lazar, and he claims that if used in a certain way Element 115 produces strong gravity waves that are the basis for the UFO propulsion systems. A gravitational warp drive. Of course, without a quantum theory of gravity there's no way to prove or disprove his statements. Unless Lazar is telling the truth, we have never even observed gravitational waves directly! But if Lazar isn't full of it, it hints of something deeply fundamental, like a complex interaction between all four forces that drive the universe. It will be an interesting story, but why do I get the feeling that we won't be around to see it...?
--
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
He just based the 115 drive on current physics theories, to make it believable.
----
1 million year half-life predicted at the island of stability is not exactly "not radioactive".
----
slashdotium?
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
what is element 95, anyway? ;)
ununquadium?
I remember reading the a-10 uses depleated uranium slugs in its 30mm cannon.
b
Has anyone seen any information/speculation on the physical properties this stuff would have?
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Were still seeing physics like this is the 1960's. No we don't have free energy but, some physics labs are having luck, or at least mesureable results with Zero-Point energy devices, working on EM theory based on Tesla. And speaking of the wacky world of electromagnetics here's theory for a reactionless drive: Reactionless Drive. Just because it sounds like Scifi doesn't mean that little green men are at the source of the future. I don't know about antimatter (and why anyone would experiment with it in atmosphere is beyond me, as dangerous as nanotech if we ever get there) but, just because '60's physics can't handle it doesn't mean it can't happen.
Spyder
But, if it is stable it shouldn't be so easily fissionable.
--Spike Gronim
Why is this discovery important? If you recall your high school or grade school physical science classes then you're undoubtedly familiar with the electron shell model and its effect in terms of the chemical reactivity of the elements. Nuclear Physics has a similar model where we note that the binding energy per nucleon (ie a proton or a neutron) goes down as the number of protons or neutrons reaches the so called magic numbers. When the number of protons or neutrons reaches the magic number then the nucleus becomes much more stable. If one believes that these magic numbers track for protons and neutrons then the next really stable element will have the proton number 126 (since there is a known island of stability around the number of neutrons equal to 126. As you approach the magic numbers, the nuclei become more stable. No one knows where the island of stability begins for the super heavy elements nor what there properties will be, so it is hard to say what the practical value of this information is. But as a nuclear physicist this is exciting evidence indeed.
Can it be used to create a weapon more efficient than a A-bomb?
Could be the solution for the Iraque-crisis...
Just to answer a few questions about the element:
113 has not been sythesised, but 112 has been. This information appeared in the last issue of Science, and the only information not mentioned is that the atom hangs around for about 30 seconds, which is pretty cool, considering 112 only existed for about 280 ms before decaying into something else.
About the naming: the element will assume the name ununquadium (as explained at
http://www.chemicalelements.com/sup/sysname.html) until it is given an official name by IUPAC (assuming there is no conflict between them and ACS, of course).
For more info about these elements, go to my web site at http://www.chemicalelements.com
Yinon
On the one hand, it may violate conservation of something; unless the energy gained by motion is equal somehow to mass loss/transform via energy density(or the energy lost in the fluctation of the mass)
At some point a photon transformed from mass to energy, and started to travel at c. If we could do a mass fluctuation large enough, the velocity gained would also be large, I think...
But the energy needed would also be stupendous...
Would one 'launch' a propulsionless drive with some initial velocity, and have the drive actually kick in later to decellerate the ship? IE, launch it from space, the earth, or the moon, or an asteroid, so it itself would not need to, but onboard functions would deploy halfway or something to slow down and stop the ship...
Heck, I wonder if we could also bend spacetime into a well, drop a ship at the lip, and use boosters at the other side to complete the trip, ala a skateboard in a half-pipe =)
-Twink