Elements 115 and 113, Ununpentium and Ununtrium have been found

Well they have finally done it. A team of American and Russian Scientists have discovered the elements. This is truley exciting news!

"Two new elements have been produced," said Walt Loveland, an Oregon State University nuclear chemist familiar with the research. "It's just incredibly exciting. It seems to open up the possibility of synthesizing more elements beyond this."

The experiments took place at a cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator, in Dubna, where the scientists fired a rare isotope of calcium at americium, an element used in applications as varied as nuclear-weapons research and household smoke detectors. Four times during a month of 24-hour-a-day bombardment in July and August, scientists on the experiment said, a calcium nucleus fused with an americium nucleus and created a new element.

Each calcium nucleus contains 20 protons; americium contains 95. Because the number of protons determines where an element goes in the periodic table, simple addition shows the new element to bear the atomic number 115, which never had been seen.

Within a fraction of a second, the four atoms of Element 115 decayed radioactively to an element with 113 protons. That element never had been seen, either. The atoms of 113 lasted for as long as 1.2 seconds before decaying radioactively to known elements.

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Ya beat me to it! Good find!

This was one of those "it's just a matter of time" events. I knew they were having trouble getting beyond 113... the new methods do look promising!

Yes, I'm especially excited about the 1,3 s decay time for element 113. That's really long for elements that heavy. The idea of a group of stable heavy elements sounds interesting, I wonder how scientists will explain that if it's true.

Since this thread is linked by the news article that says this discovery will lead to gravity control, I have decided to add something here. The theory of gravity control is based on Bob Lazar's predictions. He also said element 115 would be stable. It turns out it decays within 0,1 seconds. His theory of gravity a and b waves sounds like pseduoscience at best to me. There have been no scientific publications on this subject. There are no phenomena that suggest there are gravity a and b waves. Our current theories explain everything very well and there is a lot of evidence supporting those theories.

An article with more information and real numbers, such as 90 milliseconds as the decay time of element 115.

[Edited on 3-2-2004 by amantine]

i've always believed lazar was telling the truth -- does everyone think that this "discovery" lends credibility to his story?