All The Elements Have Been Found

[Nedersong]

So ahve all the elements been and there is no more to be found?

Or are there still some that hasn't been discovered yet?

I don't mean for this to be about science fiction fake elements please.

 

[scotthm]

Or are there still some that hasn't been discovered yet?

How would we know that, if they haven't been discovered?

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[Lindley]

Making a new element is as simple as finding a stable (at least for a few microseconds) arrangement of protons and neutrons with a higher atomic number than any other element.

Such high-mass elements typically don't last long even in laboratory conditions. I would be very surprised if we hadn't discovered all the naturally occurring elements already.

 

[M'Sharak]

Or are there still some that hasn't been discovered yet?

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, the stability of elements is not a simple curve that would drop with increasing number of nucleons. There are certain advantageous ratios of protons and neutrons that cause peaks of stability at somewhat unexpected nucleon numbers. It has long been speculated that there exist "islands of stability" higher up the nucleon count, although it is not trivial to predict where these would be.

Whether such stability would be in the order of milliseconds or millennia remains open to speculation, too.

In any case, searching on "island of stability" and "magic numbers" should help you along. Wikipedia has some good stuff already.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

How would you know that, unless there is some theoreticial limit to test, beyond which there are no nuclei that are stable for any length of time longer than the Planck time?

 

[Meredith]

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-231913.html


The found some new ones

 

[JustAFriend]

Islands of stability for transuranic elements

PBS's NOVA just aired story on it.....

Here, watch the streaming video movie:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3313/02.html

 

[Nedersong]

Thanks.

 

[Unicron]

We should add Unobtainium to the list, the element used to construct all those cool looking prototypes you see in catalogs that never make it to shelves.

 

[Meredith]

We should add Unobtainium to the list, the element used to construct all those cool looking prototypes you see in catalogs that never make it to shelves.

Actually with nano technology we could create programing molecules. They would be much larger than regular atoms by a factor of many thousand, but to the regular eye it would look like normal matter but could change shape process data etc....

 

[John O.]

Hey that's pretty cool about Element 122. And a half-life of 100 million years? Aren't elements 112-118 all super-unstable elements that only last a few nanoseconds or milliseconds?

 

[Kolrad]

It's been too long since my last physics class-- I wish I remembered this stuff better! But it seems significant that element 122 would be the first discovery from the 8th row of the periodic table. If the pattern holds, that row (and the 9th) should have over 50 elements in it, shouldn't it?

Also, Does this imply a new type of electron shell?

 

[Vanyel]

What about bolognium? With an atomic weight of "delicious".

 

[Unicron]

Let's not forget Governmentium.

Govermentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years; It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

 

[ITL]

Anyhoo - I think you'll find that the Top Science Bods (British) of the 70's sorted out the Periodic Table for us.

Example:

 

[John O.]

It's been too long since my last physics class-- I wish I remembered this stuff better! But it seems significant that element 122 would be the first discovery from the 8th row of the periodic table. If the pattern holds, that row (and the 9th) should have over 50 elements in it, shouldn't it?

Also, Does this imply a new type of electron shell?

I just got a a crazy idea. Anybody here studied psuedoperiodicity or chaos? A psuedo-orbital would be friggin sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. That'd be an orbital that never actually repeats its path... which... well, the shells are probablistic distributions anyway so... hmmm... That might just... nevermind I just melted my brain. Carry on.

 

[prometheuspan]

Making a new element is as simple as finding a stable (at least for a few microseconds) arrangement of protons and neutrons with a higher atomic number than any other element.

Such high-mass elements typically don't last long even in laboratory conditions. I would be very surprised if we hadn't discovered all the naturally occurring elements already.

You are forgetting exotic states of matter formed under high temperatures and very high gravities.

It can be assumed that quanta would behave somewhat differently, say, under 100 earth gravities on a cold dark planet, or, neutron stars, or,
etc.

It is nearly certain that we have not found all naturally ocuring elements since the ones we have to sample result from local star and geological processes which are specific enough to favor the small end of the potential ladder scale.

Very low heat high density failed black holes could have an entire new periodic table three times longer than the one we know that starts 10 octaves higher and with more neutrons and protons or, maybe even only neutrons or only protons, or, etc.

We don't know as we have not been there yet.
Making cognicentric errors as cosmologists can be an interesting logical error.


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To be sure, the stability of elements is not a simple curve that would drop with increasing number of nucleons. There are certain advantageous ratios of protons and neutrons that cause peaks of stability at somewhat unexpected nucleon numbers. It has long been speculated that there exist "islands of stability" higher up the nucleon count, although it is not trivial to predict where these would be.

Whether such stability would be in the order of milliseconds or millennia remains open to speculation, too.

So, the short answer given this plus my points above is that ther may or may not be islands of stability which exist
in conditions only of higher gravity or extreme heat or both which we can't hope to recreate via the methods employed now.