Periodic Table To Welcome Two New Elements 157
adeelarshad82 writes "Chemistry's periodic table can soon welcome livermorium and flerovium, two newly named elements, which were announced Thursday (Dec. 1) by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The new names will undergo a five-month public comment period before the official paperwork gets processed and they show up on the table. Three other new elements just recently finished this process, filling in the 110, 111 and 112 spots."
I see that these are atomic numbers 114 and 116 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's so nice to see... (Score:2, Interesting)
To be more specific, the periodic table can be thought of as a fungus. The elements are the mycelia of the fungus, and once in a while the table produces fruiting bodies (like mushrooms) that will produce spores for the periodic table to reproduce. It is these fruiting bodies that are the new elements. The spores will be released from these new elements when moisture and temperature conditions are right -- and with luck, a given spore may land upon the wall of another elementary school classroom and become a new periodic table of the elements.
Re:Love potion? (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Rejected again! (Score:2, Interesting)
I dunno, but they really should keep 111 as unununium. It just sounds too damn funny to discard.
Re:Real elements - or theoretical? (Score:5, Interesting)
Allow me, then.
If you define an element as something that "cannot be broken down any further" you exclude anything that decays into lighter elements, such as uranium or radium. You also exclude substances that can be induced to break down through various means.
However, it's not a problem if you refine the definition slightly: an element is that which cannot be broken down chemically. You can't turn an atom of X into a lighter atom of Y just by mixing chemicals together in a beaker (no offence, chemists, I'm just trying to illustrate a point). Fire X through a particle accelerator hard enough, though, and sometimes it breaks apart into smaller/lighter pieces when it hits something.
Is that better?