Japanese scientists create heaviest ever element

TOKYO, Sept. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Japanese scientists said Tuesday they have created a new element that is heavier than any known element, the most significant in the field since the heaviest known element was discovered in Germany in 1996.

If confirmed, the new element, whose atomic number is 113, will be the first manmade element created by Japanese, according to Kosuke Morita and his team at Japan's physical and chemical research institute.

The team would have the right to name the superheavy element inthe periodic table, and "japonium" is a candidate name, Morita said.

The heaviest element existing in nature is uranium whose atomic number is 92. All heavier elements have been produced artificiallyby scientists and numbered according to how many protons are in their nuclei. From 1940 to 1996, elements numbered up to 112 were created.

Russian scientists said in February they had created elements 113 and 115, but the discovery remains to be confirmed internationally.





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Will this Super Heavy Element serve any purpose, or is it just a measuring contest within the scientific community?

i hope it wont lead to new nukes...hope it leads to new conspiracies

Armor or armor piercing munitions?

maybe it could replace those nasty depleted uranium rounds and make shells more lethal in the process

I think they use depleted uranium because it's readily available. These super heavy elements can only be made in very small qauntities.
Correct me if I wrong though.

I'd love to feel the weight of this stuff though. I mean lead is heavy enough, imagine what this stuff would be like.

The problem with these new elements is that they have a very brief half life before they break down to simpler elements, the later of which recently discovered can only be created adn remain stable for a matter of seconds. They are completely useless to anything but research and physics. Interesting nonetheless and these elements may be entirely stable in other parts of the universe.

Does this mean i have to go out and buy a new updated periodic table?

There is a bit more info:
www.news24.com...

Someone told me, that this superheavy element can be used to create a new drive, which can be used in spacecrafts. Is there any truth in that?

kind regards
uwe

On a lighter note, I thought the heaviest element was my mother-in-law

if i remember correctly, this element actually lasts for a longer period of time before degrading, which is a nice indication of the rumored stable super-heavy zone that scientists have been striving for, if this IS the first of them, then yes, we actually COULD use it in alot of applications.

FYI, when i say it lasted longer, i mean it lasted seconds instead of micro-seconds, which is still a huge leap

welcome to the brave new world of ultra-small mega-thin super-heavy paperweights!!! ...That disintegrate in 0.3 seconds!!!

[edit on 29-9-2004 by DeepInDaJungle]

Holy cripes... Those two comments really lifted my spirits for in a nerdy sort of way!

Anyway, as people have said... These elements degrade FAR too quickly in order for them to serve any useful purpose. As for this being used to create a new sort of propulsion, here's a link to help you out: EXCLUSIVE: Why element 115 can not be used for antigravity.

I'd hoped they'd named it Gojira-ium!

[edit on 29-9-2004 by Der Kapitan]

You're thinking of Element 115, which isn't actually verified yet as I recall. This is the element claimed used by the alien craft Lazar supposedly worked on at S-4, part of the Area 51 complex (though by Papoose, not Groom Lake). Last I checked, the name for it will be Unimpentium (or something similar)

I think the Japanese Scientists should name it Godzillium

because it's really heavy, extremely rare and just doesn't seem to last all that long
(Longest time on record for Godzilla a little over 1-1/2 hours).

yes-gaz-thought 115 was hevest element created so far. It lasts for only a small fraction of a second-hughly unstable.
Let us not forget that 115 was what Bob L clamed was fuel for ufo tech.

Eh, not very useful for now in practical applications, as it has a half-life of microseconds, and can only be made in tiny quantities. However, it does provide insights into atomic physics, and is a good way to try and push particle acclerators to their limits and study the interations between subatomic particles.
Also, they're trying to find the theoretical "superstable" zone, which would be superheavy elements that have half lives that aren't minuscule. We don't really know what the uses would be for this stuff, but in the periodic table, elemets of a same column usually share properties. Looking at it, 113 shares a colum with boron, gallium, aluminium, indium and thallium, so it would likley have similar characteristics to these. (eg. low weight, good semiconductor dopers)

When my teachers teach me the periodic table and if they don't have this I can say you forgot an element. I will be smarter than the teacher. *evil laugh*