Meet Ununseptium, Best Contender Yet For Element 117

From Motherboard comes this description of what may turn out to be the newest entry on the periodic table, newly synthesized element 117, created by researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research of Darmstadt, Germany, and described in results published this week in Physical Review Letters. From the article: "Element 117 has been temporarily given the very literal name ununseptium (one-one-seven in Latin), and will only honored with a real name once the the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Chemistry (IUPAPC) confirms its synthesis at the GSI accelerator. Ununseptium is 40 percent heavier than lead, making it on par with the heaviest atoms ever observed. ... Its properties seem to confirm that the existence of the so-called “island of stability”—a theory suggesting that the half-lives of superheavy isotopes will lengthen as their atomic numbers increase further away from uranium. Any element with an atomic number greater than 103 is considered superheavy (or in the 'transactinide class,' if you prefer the scientific jargon). Transactinides can only be observed artificially in a laboratory, and synthesizing them is no easy task." Note: that "real name" process isn't a mere formality; just a few years ago, another attempt to synthesize a 117th element looked promising enough to be declared done, but could not be confirmed with the IUPAPC's tests.

Link to paper

[Anonymous Coward]

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.172501

Posting as AC so as not to karma-whore.
- Esteanil

Re:

[Esteanil]

Hm, that got score 0...

Re:

[RockDoctor]

"4 informative" now.

Link to paper

[Esteanil]

Proper link to paper [aps.org]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

with a halflife of 78 miliseconds that seems unlikely.

it would not only be all gone within a second, it would kill everybody around it. (the half life and radiation are directly and inversely related)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the atoms are 40% heavier doesn't mean the bulk material (if ignoring half-life issues) will be 40% denser. Osmium is still 10% denser than uranium, and uranium is 30% denser than californium.

Re:40% heavier than lead

[Phroon]

The "40% heavier" actually refers to atomic weight, not density. By density, Tungsten is ~70% heaver than lead, Depleted Uranium about 68%. Tungsten's atomic wight is actually ~10% lighter than Lead's. Bulk density is about arrangement of the electrons and the resulting packing of atoms in the solid.

Re:

[Twinbee]

Tungsten is about the best you're gonna get if you want to buy something really heavy (almost twice as heavy as lead), that's easily available to the general public, relatively cheap, and non-toxic. I went and just bought this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tungst... [ebay.com]

Worst movie line ever

[RogueWarrior65]

From a scientific point of view anyway. From Predator 2: "This doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table." Really? I'd propose naming a new element Hollywoodium but I think that would introduce more problems than it would solve.

Re:

[ninlilizi]

My votes in for Unobtanium

Re:

[sconeu]

Yeah, Hollywood would insist on DRM in the periodic table.

Re:

[tragedy]

That one bothered me at the time. Since then I've become more relaxed about it. There are actually a lot of possibilities for solid matter that aren't on the periodic table. Things like exotic purely non-baryonic matter, or combinations of baryonic and non-baryonic matter. Atoms with electrons replaced by Muons, for example. Many of the theoretical ideas for such exotic forms of matter have been ruled out, but there's a still a _lot_ out there. We are not yet remotely at the point where we can know for sure

Ununtrium 113

[12WTF$]

Hereby declare support for naming Ununtrium (element 113) as:

Pixarium

I do hope they find a better name.

[Rambo Tribble]

Ununseptium sounds like a nasal condition caused by the consumption of cocaine.

Re:

[Trepidity]

It'll eventually get a "real" name. This is the temporary IUPAC systematic name [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Ununseptium's name has been up for debate for years.

Hell, I'm surprised this thread hasn't even suggested one based on Halo - Master Chief's designation number was, after all, 117. (He is "officially" known as John-117, or Spartan-117, depending on whether you want to personify him or not).

Every other thread on Uus has suggested it.

Half life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know the half life?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:

[ACELLC]

Yes.

I needed a little chuckle. Thank you sir.

Re:

[TheRealHocusLocus]

I'll be honest, I had to read that a few times to really understand the thought process behind it, but that's a really interesting, and entirely plausible classification... I need to do more research.

(We're talking about THIS MESSAGE [slashdot.org], in case Slashdot's moderators have completely hidden it from view) Thanks kindly for reading it. I feel like I'm in a schoolyard surrounded by bullies. For one thing, you cannot mention sheep these days without jabbing emotional buttons and hasty readers think you are trying to be insulting and lobbing -1 Flamebait epithets at people. Sheep as in counting sheep. We're talking about ordinal numbers, counting sheep. I'm not trying to insult anyone! Get it? Good. Baaaah.

What the hell do you mean 'best contender'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have 117 protons or not?!

The best contender yet...

[Brucelet]

Well with a name like that, it's not like there was much competition. Ununhexium tried, but he just didn't have enough in him.

Re:

[Muad'Dave]

He wasn't positive enough!

Meanwhile..

[_hAZE_]

Meanwhile, the "IUPAPC" was still operating under their very literal name, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Chemistry. They have applied with the Advanced Center Reportedly Of Naming Your Movement (ACRONYM), however the application is still pending certification.

Re:

[ramorim]

Last I heard IUPAPC's bacronym was denied for similarity: ACRONYM Chemical Research Only Needs Your Money.

So, that's a Recursive ACRONYM :)

Daltonium

[GrahamCox]

It's an obvious thing, yet apparently wilfully ignored: Dalton, the first scientist to come up with a recognisable modern atomic theory, is not honoured in the naming of the elements, yet all sorts of (no doubt worthy, but obscure) physicists have been, and even having their universities honoured (Berkelium, Lawrencium, etc). It's really about time this oversight was corrected. Personally I feel it should have been done for something a lot more common and 'early', but as we're now mopping up the tail-enders

Re:

[captainpanic]

Dalton already has a unit named after him (the unit used to indicate atomic/molecular mass), although it is not an SI unit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]

Star Wars Day

[CanEHdian]

It's May the 4th, this element has the highest Protonian count ever observed, so I suggest Anakinium.

Naming

[Plumpaquatsch]

I again politely ask the next door scientists to consider naming the new element for the castle ruin just south of Darmstadt. Frankensteinium has such a nice ring to it.

Misread the title for Unobtainium

[protoporos]

For a moment there, I thought they discovered Unobtainium [wikipedia.org] and thought... wtf, we'll be drilling for the core [wikipedia.org] of the earth soon... :)

mc máy in ti Hà Ni

[honey 2]

Công ty chúng tôi chuyên nhn mc máy in góa r nht, cht lng mc in hoàn toàn m bo, chuyên mc máy in cácloi may in Canon, Hp, Samsung, brother,..... Dch v mc máy in uy tin, chúng tôi s n ngay sau khi khách hàng liên h. Vi i ng nhân viên kinh nghim quáy khác s yên tâm khi n vi chúng tôi. Mi thông tin xin lin h http://thaymucmayin.litado.vn/ [litado.vn]