The periodic table expands once again
They exist for only seconds at most in real life, but they’ve gained immortality in chemistry: two new elements have been added to the periodic table.
The elements were recognised by an international committee of chemists and physicists. They’re called elements 114 and 116 for now — permanent names and symbols will be chosen later. People are not likely to run into any of this stuff. Scientists make them in labs by smashing atoms of other elements together to create the new ones. “Our experiments last for many weeks, and typically, we make an atom every week or so,” said chemist Ken Moody of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, part of the discovery team. In contrast to more familiar elements like carbon and gold, the new ones are short-lived. Atoms of 114 disintegrate within a few seconds, while 116 disappears in just a fraction of a second. Both elements were discovered by a collaboration of scientists from Livermore and Russia. They made them by smashing calcium ions into atoms of plutonium or another element, curium.
In the periodic table, the number of an element refers to the number of protons in the nucleus of an individual atom. Despite the number 116, the additions bring the total number of recognised elements to just 114. That’s because elements 113 and 115 haven’t been officially accepted yet. —AP
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