The nice thing about running simulations all day is it gives me plenty of time for reading.
"These rules may not hold for all the super-heavy elements. In their atoms, the electrons near the nucleus are so tightly bound by the positively-charged nucleus that they travel at immense speeds. They are so fast that they feel the effects of Einstein's theory of special relativity, which states that objects moving close to the speed of light gain mass. As a result, the inner electrons become heavier. The upshot is that "relativistic" effects can mean a super-heavy element does not behave as we would expect it to."
But, how would it behave then ? TELL ME ! I NEED TO KNOW THIS !!!
"...it seems that nothing untoward happens to the energies of the innermost electrons until atomic number 173. Even then the atoms can remain stable, but all the same something weird happens. It turns out that the innermost electrons of element 173 might be in an unusual, unstable state that can evoke these "virtual" particles. If one of these electrons gets kicked out of its shell, for example by zapping it with an X-ray, it will leave a hole behind. This hole will be filled by an electron that appears out of nothing. But for this electron to form, a positron must also form, and this will be emitted by the atom. In other words, the electron clouds of these really huge elements might occasionally burp out particles of antimatter."
Well that's cool.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160115-how-many-more-chemical-elements-are-there-for-us-to-find
That remains to be seen, I just recently that we finally have a full periodic table of elements (no blanks - although we have topped out at 117 or 120)
ReplyDeleteSeems like a remarkably ill-informed article. Mercury is not produced by stellar fusion; iron is as far as you can go. It's probably not even formed in significant quantities in supernovae, though I don't recall it being called out in particular in the articles I've read. But all of the heaviest (naturally occurring) elements are now believed to be formed via neutron-star collisions, and Hg almost certainly falls into that category, too.
ReplyDeleteThe part about boron seems outdated, as well, but I don't have a reference handy (though http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/07/05/why-did-the-universe-start-off-with-hydrogen-helium-and-not-much-else/ is suggestive).
I'm no expert, but there's a very nice summary here :
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1l99tx/how_did_elements_heavier_than_iron_form_given/
Thanks, that is a nice summary--and more detailed than much of what I'd read before.
ReplyDeleteIf the mass increases why can it NOT be measured as a gain in weight ?
ReplyDelete( I mean above the increase gained by the extra Neutrons and protons over the element below )