Not here.
I had read that scientists are speculating that a new row of elements may be stable. Sounds impossible, but much of what we take for granted now was deemed impossible a century ago.
Strong interaction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In particle physics, the strong interaction is the mechanism responsible for the strong nuclear force (also called the strong force, nuclear strong force), one of the four known fundamental interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, the weak interaction and gravitation.
Despite only operating at a distance of a femtometer, it is the strongest force, being approximately 100 times stronger than electromagnetism, a million times stronger than weak interaction and 1038 times stronger than gravitation at that range.[1] It ensures the stability of ordinary matter, confining quarks into hadron particles, such as the proton and neutron, the largest components of the mass of ordinary matter. Furthermore, most of the mass-energy of a common proton or neutron is in the form of the strong force field energy; the individual quarks provide only about 1% of the mass-energy of a proton.
The strong interaction is observable in two areas: on a larger scale (about 1 to 3 femtometers (fm)), it is the force that binds protons and neutrons (nucleons) together to form the nucleus of an atom. On the smaller scale (less than about 0.8 fm, the radius of a nucleon), it is the force (carried by gluons) that holds quarks together to form protons, neutrons, and other hadron particles. In the latter context, it is often known as the color force. The strong force inherently has such a high strength that hadrons bound by the strong force can produce new massive particles.
Thus, if hadrons are struck by high-energy particles, they give rise to new hadrons instead of emitting freely moving radiation (gluons). This property of the strong force is called color confinement, and it prevents the free “emission” of the strong force: instead, in practice, jets of massive particles are observed.
In the context of binding protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei, the strong interaction is called the nuclear force (or residual strong force). In this case, it is the residuum of the strong interaction between the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons. As such, the residual strong interaction obeys a quite different distance-dependent behavior between nucleons, from when it is acting to bind quarks within nucleons.
The binding energy that is partly released on the breakup of a nucleus is related to the residual strong force and is harnessed in nuclear power and fission-type nuclear weapons.[2][3]
The strong interaction is hypothesized to be mediated by massless particles called gluons, that are exchanged between quarks, antiquarks, and other gluons. Gluons, in turn, are thought to interact with quarks and gluons as all carry a type of charge called color charge. Color charge is analogous to electromagnetic charge, but it comes in three types rather than one (+/- red, +/- green, +/- blue) that results in a different type of force, with different rules of behavior. These rules are detailed in the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which is the theory of quark-gluon interactions.
After the Big Bang, during the electroweak epoch, the electroweak force separated from the strong force. Although it is expected that a Grand Unified Theory exists to describe this, no such theory has been successfully formulated, and the unification remains an unsolved problem in physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction
Weak interaction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In particle physics, the weak interaction is the mechanism responsible for the weak force or weak nuclear force, one of the four known fundamental interactions of nature, alongside the strong interaction, electromagnetism, and gravitation. The weak interaction is responsible for the radioactive decay of subatomic particles, and it plays an essential role in nuclear fission.
The theory of the weak interaction is sometimes called quantum flavordynamics (QFD), in analogy with the terms QCD and QED, but the term is rarely used because the weak force is best understood in terms of electro-weak theory (EWT).[1]
In the Standard Model of particle physics, the weak interaction is caused by the emission or absorption of W and Z bosons. All known fermions interact through the weak interaction. Fermions are particles that have half-integer spin (one of the fundamental properties of particles). A fermion can be an elementary particle, such as the electron, or it can be a composite particle, such as the proton. The masses of W+, W−, and Z bosons are each far greater than that of protons or neutrons, consistent with the short range of the weak force.
The force is termed weak because its field strength over a given distance is typically several orders of magnitude less than that of the strong nuclear force and electromagnetic force.
During the quark epoch, the electroweak force split into the electromagnetic and weak forces. Important examples of weak interaction include beta decay, and the production, from hydrogen, of deuterium needed to power the sun’s thermonuclear process. Most fermions will decay by a weak interaction over time. Such decay also makes radiocarbon dating possible, as carbon-14 decays through the weak interaction to nitrogen-14. It can also create radioluminescence, commonly used in tritium illumination, and in the related field of betavoltaics.[2]
Quarks, which make up composite particles like neutrons and protons, come in six “flavours” - up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom - which give those composite particles their properties. The weak interaction is unique in that it allows for quarks to swap their flavour for another. For example, during beta minus decay, a down quark decays into an up quark, converting a neutron to a proton. Also the weak interaction is the only fundamental interaction that breaks parity-symmetry, and similarly, the only one to break CP-symmetry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_interaction
Some of the transuranic elements are very unstable but other are relatively stable. Neptunium for example has a halflife of over 2 million years.
A minuscule amount of U 238 decays by beta to Np 238 which decays to Pu 238 also by beta. Pu 238 decays by alpha to U 234 then to Th 230, etc.
“The Protons in the nucleus repel each other. “
Reminds me of my ex.