LATimes : Berkeley confirmed Dubna’s ununquadium
Ununquadium means 114-ium, a placeholder name for super heavy element number 114 should its existence be confirmed. It was asserted ten years ago in Russia by accelerator-wielding nuclear physicists at the Dubna Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Now maybe the Russians can apply for a name. Physicists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab say they found in a cyclotron’s target signs that they had duplicated what the Russians say they did long ago.
At one time, reports of new elements, especially if it is the heaviest yet, was big news. And Berkeley was at the heart of the contest to add to the list. But not so much anymore. Perhaps it’s that, 1) This is a confirmation, not a discovery, and 2) How does it really matter? This elements last only a brief moment before decaying. That it can exist is fascinating to nuclear physicists but, absent a cold war or other nuclear race, not so much to others. But still….
One major media reporter in the US perked, up. The Los Angeles Times‘s Thomas H. Maugh II wrote it, birefly but included the disappointing news that the half life seems to mean a long-sought “island of stability” is not occupied by ununquadium. Such an outpost of fairly long lived elements is imagined to be where enormous atomic weights of protons and neutrons hit a “sweet spot” of balanced strong and electromagnetic forces that allows their bloated nuclei not to fly apart right away. Good for Tom. This deserves, perhaps, longer treatment. This was a long wait for the Russians for someone to drop a second, confirming shoe and cement their claim.
Now some say the best candidate synthetic element that could confirm that the island of stability exists has atomic number 126. That one’s moniker pro tem is Unbihexium.
Grist for the Mill: LBL Press Release ; PRL journal abstract ;
- Charlie Petit
