Newest element, 115 just confirmed.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/28/world/europe/new-chemical-element/index.html

The periodic table just got a bit larger. I keep waiting for the next stable level, 118 and above.

Things sure have changed since I was a kid. There used to be less elements, more planets, less moons, only Saturn had rings, Diplodocus was the longest dinosaur, Brachiosaurus was the heaviest, Brontosaurus was real...hard to keep up

Since these superheavies decay so quickly, one cannot say that they have chemical properties or physical properties like melting point, density, conductivity or color. But can experts in quantum theory say theoretically what the properties of a chunk of pure element would be if only the nuclei were stable?

Originally posted by woodypusher
Things sure have changed since I was a kid. There used to be less elements, more planets, less moons, only Saturn had rings, Diplodocus was the longest dinosaur, Brachiosaurus was the heaviest, Brontosaurus was real...hard to keep up

Originally posted by woodypusher
*more planets in our solar system

Originally posted by wolfgang59
A reference to Pluto's demotion methinks.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Since these superheavies decay so quickly, one cannot say that they have chemical properties or physical properties like melting point, density, conductivity or color. But can experts in quantum theory say theoretically what the properties of a chunk of pure element would be if only the nuclei were stable?

Originally posted by Soothfast
The quantum model of the hydrogen atom is a truly complicated beast, though it involves only a single proton "orbited" by a single electron. Maybe someone can set me straight here, but I don't think physicists to this day have managed to work out the complete model of the next element in line, which is helium. And anyway a quantum model doesn't necessari ...[text shortened]... der various atmospheric conditions.

Science. It has gone so far, yet has so far to go...

Originally posted by sonhouse
There is one out there, no atmosphere, called Eris.

YouTube