Posted on 02/03/2004 6:57:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Heavy elements approach fabled ‘island of stability’.
Tantalising evidence of two new chemical elements has been produced by a team of Russian and American scientists. Their observations indicate that we may be getting close to the fabled ‘island of stability’ in the periodic table, where heavy elements should be more stable than their neighbours. If confirmed, the discovery will bring the tally of known elements to 116.
“It’s one of the most fundamental questions — how many elements are there?” says Paddy Regan, a nuclear physicist at the University of Surrey. “There must be an upper limit, and this work suggests that we should be able to find that within the next decade.”
Uranium, the heaviest element found in nature, has an atomic number of 92, meaning it has 92 protons in its nucleus. Atoms bigger than this are more likely to break apart spontaneously in radioactive decay, because the strong nuclear force that holds protons and neutrons together gets weaker as more particles jostle for space at the core of the atom. Also, protons have a positive charge and the more there are the greater the strain on the nucleus due to the repulsion between them. Eventually the nucleus shatters, spraying out smaller, more stable atoms.
But physicists have predicted ‘islands of stability’ at atomic numbers 114, 120 and/or 126, where the protons and neutrons might be able to jostle themselves into a shape that minimises contact between the protons. That would allow the nucleus to hang together for much longer than its neighbours in the periodic table. Creating such elements may give scientists access to unusual and exciting chemistry.
Smashing
The only way to make these heavy elements is to smash smaller atoms together at huge energies. The team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, fired a beam of heavy calcium atoms at a target made from americium, the radioactive metal found inside smoke detectors.
The result of the collision was just four atoms of element 115, which lived for about 90 milliseconds before decaying into a second new element, 1131. Interestingly, the atoms of 113 survived for up to 1.2 seconds, “long enough to allow you to do some interesting chemistry”, according to Francis Livens, a nuclear chemist at the University of Manchester.
The new elements have provisionally been named ununtrium (113) and ununpentium (115). They will be given proper names if and when the discovery is confirmed.
The Dubna group has an extensive track record in this kind of alchemy. ‘Dubnium’ was named to commemorate the group's creation of element 105, and it has also recorded evidence for elements 114 and 116.
Nevertheless, Regan remains cautious. “For this to be real, it has to be reproducible, so I’m keeping an open mind on this,” he says. “Basically, if you want proof, you need a smoking gun. In this case, you need to see the alpha particles and X-rays that come from radioactive decay — and you have to see them at precisely the right energy that is caused by that particular decay.”
Retraction and accusation
Many others in the field are equally tentative. Embarrassment over the discovery of element 118, announced with great fanfare and then retracted amid accusations of scientific fraud, has left the nuclear physics community feeling bruised.
“We haven’t so much got egg on our face over 118, more like a full omelette,” says Regan.
He adds that many in the field think there is an inherent problem with the technique used in these experiments. Since the americium target used is itself radioactive, it will always contain traces of other decay products that interfere with the reaction.
However, the US Department of Energy recently promised $850 million towards a new rare isotope accelerator. This will allow physicists to use as the target a beam of radioactive americium atoms that is absolutely pure, unlike the stationary target used in this latest research.
Actually, the 30s showed that rewriting the constitution and heavy government intervention can make a self-stabilizing economy become a crippled one beat into submission by seizure of gold for ultimate government power.
They showed that too, but our economy is still not going to take off till interest rates are high enough to make it worthwhile.
" I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade"
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes, it does. If a profit can be turned in 10 years, then private enterprise can and should finance it.
"Right now we have 3 private companies working on commercial orbital flight. There is no way private enterprise could have pioneered in space flight"
That is correct, but only because the government already did it.
No, because without the government proving the concept, demonstrating the possibility of profit and shortening the time line to profitability from 40 years to a few years, private enterprise would never have put up the money.
So9
How about never useful? Lots of this stuff is only going to procreate PhDs in nuclear physics...
That's the thing about basic research, you can't tell what possible use it will be. It is always a crapshoot.
If you can tell if research will have a profitable result, then it is aplied research and belongs in the private sector.
"The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates."
A far greater danger is the government sapping too much of the economy for political ends ...
Could be, but not now. The reason the Fed Funds rate is down to 1% is that there is far more money available than there is demand.
"We need more govt. spending right now, enough to drive the prime rate up to at least 4%."
You really mean this? You remember Limbaugh's comment about taxing ourselves into prosperity? This is exactly what you're proposing, .... It just doesn't work.
Rush has begun to sound like Perrot. Every answer is Realll Simple, but not every problem has a simplistic answer.
Saturday, posters were beating up on me claiming I was really a Libertarian in Conservatives Clothing.
Lord only knows what y'all are gonna think.
Gotta Go.
So9
They your position is that without government funded research these is no research?
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