metalresearcher
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Does the island of stability really exist ?
Some rumors are about this. I think it is wishful thinking. There is no proof of 'stable' isotopes (i.e. half lives more than even a day) of the 100+
elements, except one Dubnium isotope (28 hours). And all 110+ elements even in a fraction of a second.
Completely useless so I guess mankind will never get knowledge of chemical or physical properties of these (actually virtual) elements, unless one
makes one of these elements with far less neutrons or no neutrons at all ???
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j_sum1
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It probably is a thing. But stability is a relative term.
I think it is probably more like a coral reef in deep water than an actual island. That is, more stable than surrounding isotopes but nothing of any
practical use.
(Statement based on intuition only without any supporting evidence. But then, I don't think anyone has evidence so I am not alone in speculating.)
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macckone
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The coral reef analogy is very good.
The most stable isotopes in the 110-116 region have half-lives less than 2 minutes.
But we have not succeeded in making the hypothetical 'more stable' isotopes with higher neutron counts.
Yet.
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pantone159
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I do not think that there any more absolutely stable isotopes: Any such would presumably have been formed in neutron star collisions, and none seem to
be around anymore, so I figure the longest half-lives would not exceed perhaps a few hundred million years.
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JGHFunRun
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Quote: Originally posted by pantone159  | I do not think that there any more absolutely stable isotopes: Any such would presumably have been formed in neutron star collisions, and none seem to
be around anymore, so I figure the longest half-lives would not exceed perhaps a few hundred million years.
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The longest lasting isotopes on the "island", both of which belong to copernicium, are just specified as half lifes >1 year that I've seen, still
promethium's longest half life is 17 years so even if it's just 1 year that's pretty decent. I'm most excited at the hope we might be able to confirm
the theory that copernicium is a liquid at room temperature
[Edited on 13-9-2022 by JGHFunRun]
[Edited on 13-9-2022 by JGHFunRun]
HeH⁺ HeH⁺ HeH⁺ HeH⁺
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Rainwater
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I like to think of it as a cookie batter, with the proper ratio and even distribution of chocolate chips.
If you add to many chips or do not mix them into the batter evenly, your cookie falls apart.
Ummmm... cookies.
But to further the example, the bigger the cookie, the bigger the mixing bowl needed to evenly mix them. Currently, we are not using a bowl to mix our
batter ( atoms). We are crudely throwing one lump of batter at another and hoping they stick together.
It's kind of like crystallization with an impurity in the mix, fault lines form, as the structure is stressed, parts break off. Instead of 1
symmetrical crystal, you get a weekly clumping of crystal. Even though it is one solid piece, it's weak at these fault lines and can break.
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
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BromicAcid
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I think it's there and some interesting elements are going to come from it. Nuclear physicists have been speculating on it's existence for decades
but as their models become more sophisticated not only do they still show an island of stability but a second island is starting to form further out.
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metalresearcher
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| Quote: Originally posted by BromicAcid | | I think it's there and some interesting elements are going to come from it. Nuclear physicists have been speculating on it's
existence for decades but as their models become more sophisticated not only do they still show an island of stability but a second island is starting
to form further out. |
Well, in what sense interesting ?
All elements above 100 are just hypothetical because they do not occur in nature and have never been synthesized in weighable / investigable amounts,
but only a few atoms at a time which quickly fall apart.
Unless scientists find out a way to determine properties of an element or one of its compounds within a microsecond, this will never happen.
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BromicAcid
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It's a lot different making useful quantities of an element with a half-life of fractions of a second than it is of an element with a half-life of
tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. If they make something cool and find a use for it you can bet that purpose built cyclotrons will not be
far behind.
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metalresearcher
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| Quote: Originally posted by BromicAcid | | It's a lot different making useful quantities of an element with a half-life of fractions of a second than it is of an element with a half-life of
tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. If they make something cool and find a use for it you can bet that purpose built cyclotrons will not be
far behind. |
But there are no elements above 100 which have a half-life of 'tens or even hundreds of thousands of years', 1 day at most, but most only a fraction
of a second. And the most 'stable' isotopes are the hardest to make.
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Σldritch
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I think the chances of more stable beyond elements Z = 100 are pretty good. Black holes/Neutron stars are stable aren't they? Just need to make nuclei
big enough and you can disregard energetics due to time dilation/relativistic effects. There is the continent of stability concept too.
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Tsjerk
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Inside black holes and neutron stars there is no such thing as nuclei, it is either only neutrons or a singular point of something we don't know much
about.
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BromicAcid
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metalresearcher, the whole point of the island of stability is that theoretical modeling does indicate that some of these atoms may have half-lives of
hundreds of thousands of years. I haven't read any of the new papers on this in years but some of the references available from Wiki indicate that
things like 298Fl might have half-lives on the order of 10^19 years. I mean, that is the purpose of this topic, what if this island of stability
exists and is reached.
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Σldritch
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| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk |
Inside black holes and neutron stars there is no such thing as nuclei, it is either only neutrons or a singular point of something we don't know much
about. |
That was a rhetorical question and I disagree. No such thing as a gravitational point singularity. Maybe ring singularity but i doubt the existence of
those as well.
It is largely a definitional question anyway. Stability too. If you consider the neutron different from the proton, are protons (Hydrogen) even stable
at all?
It is correct though that we don't know much about these objects. I'd like to believe I know a little bit more but physics is hard; my ideas need more
work to be presentable.
[Edited on 16-9-2022 by Σldritch]
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j_sum1
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There is a school of thought that a neutron star (and by extension some other astronomical objects) are really just a large atomic nucleus with no
protons.
This turns out to be an unuseful categorisation, as does the term neutronium. It is currently believed that there exists more than one state of matter
in a neutron star. And the force that holds it all together is quite different from the forces holding a nucleus together.
(We could postulate the existance of something atom-like with no protons (and hence no electrons). Since an isolated neutron is already well defined,
what is in quedtion here is small groups of neutrons bonded via the strong force.
This is probably a good question for Dr Don Lincoln of Fermilab. I don't think he has covered it on his yt channel. My guess is that the answer is
either no, or short half life and not occurring naturally for all practical purposes.)
The island of stability is a separate question and to bring up black holes, singularities and neutron stars mostly just muddies the waters.
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metalresearcher
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| Quote: Originally posted by BromicAcid | | metalresearcher, the whole point of the island of stability is that theoretical modeling does indicate that some of these atoms may have half-lives of
hundreds of thousands of years. I haven't read any of the new papers on this in years but some of the references available from Wiki indicate
that things like 298Fl might have half-lives on the order of 10^19 years. I mean, that is the purpose of this topic, what if this island of
stability exists and is reached. |
Is there any real life example of this ?
If not, it is all based on theoretical calculations and until any superheavy element with a usable (>100000 years, perferably far more) half life
and in decent quantities (at least weighable amounts and not just a few atoms), the whole island of stability is just fake.
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Fulmen
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Agreed, especially BH and singularities. A singularity is a purely hypothetical construct, we have no way of knowing what (if anything)
happens with matter beyond the event horizon.
At least neutron stars are part of the observable universe. But still it's of little use in this discussion. Neutrons in a NS are stable because they
have no choice. Usually they decay to protons and electrons, but that's exactly what the neutrons were formed by in the first place.
[Edited on 16-9-22 by Fulmen]
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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BromicAcid
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Question is "Does the island of stability actually exist?"
Consensus from people much smarter than me is "Yes". Different theoretical models have over the years given different results. The nucleus has been
assumed to be different shapes, different modes of spontaneous fission have been considered, but no matter the model or method this island appears
even if its shores shift. The fact that it still pops up despite changes to experimental model, that it persists with different sets of assumptions
is what leads me to believe it is really there and smarter minds than I agree.
@metalreseracher - Of course you can say it does not exist. I have not seen a paper written specifically debunking the island of stability, though
the preponderance of research is focused on positive results rather than negative. Because it's an interesting question to ask, I specifically went
looking for papers claiming the island of stability does not exist and offering up explanations for its appearance in current models.
In that process I ran across a few articles, but they all said the same thing - current theory predicts the island of stability but it has never been
observed so there is a chance it isn't there.
https://the-gist.org/2020/07/new-elements-island-of-stabilit...
Still, a quick journal search shows that the number of papers containing the phrase "island of stability" has nearly doubled in the last decade. So
there are plenty of people looking for it.
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Texium
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Thread Moved
16-9-2022 at 14:16 |
Σldritch
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Speaking of stars, I forgot to bring those up. For example stars like Przybylski's Star. Apparently (super)heavy elements show up in magnetic stars.
Of course the spectra of the superheavy elements have only been stimulated, but it looks promising. From my knowledge of physics this find makes a lot
of sense too.
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