Chemists Create and Capture Einsteinium, the Elusive 99th Element (livescience.com) 50
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Live Science: Scientists have successfully studied einsteinium -- one of the most elusive and heaviest elements on the periodic table -- for the first time in decades. The achievement brings chemists closer to discovering the so-called 'island of stability,' where some of the heftiest and shortest-lived elements are thought to reside. The U.S. Department of Energy first discovered einsteinium in 1952 in the fall-out of the first hydrogen bomb test. The element does not occur naturally on Earth and can only be produced in microscopic quantities using specialized nuclear reactors. It is also hard to separate from other elements, is highly radioactive and rapidly decays, making it extremely difficult to study.
Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) at the University of California, recently created a 233-nanogram sample of pure einsteinium and carried out the first experiments on the element since the 1970s. In doing so they were able to uncover some of the element's fundamental chemical properties for the first time. [...] The main finding from the study was the measurement of the einsteinium bond length -- the average distance between two bonded atoms -- a fundamental chemical property that helps scientists predict how it will interact with other elements. They found that einsteinium's bond length goes against the general trend of the actinides. This is something that had been theoretically predicted in the past, but has never been experimentally proved before. Compared with the rest of the actinide series, einsteinium also luminesces very differently when exposed to light [...]. Further experiments are needed to determine why. The study was published in the journal Nature.
Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) at the University of California, recently created a 233-nanogram sample of pure einsteinium and carried out the first experiments on the element since the 1970s. In doing so they were able to uncover some of the element's fundamental chemical properties for the first time. [...] The main finding from the study was the measurement of the einsteinium bond length -- the average distance between two bonded atoms -- a fundamental chemical property that helps scientists predict how it will interact with other elements. They found that einsteinium's bond length goes against the general trend of the actinides. This is something that had been theoretically predicted in the past, but has never been experimentally proved before. Compared with the rest of the actinide series, einsteinium also luminesces very differently when exposed to light [...]. Further experiments are needed to determine why. The study was published in the journal Nature.
Island of stability. (Score:5, Interesting)
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The existance of its fairly well accepted, altough not actually proven.
I think with neutron stars this sort of fusion, if its happening, is going to be well below the surface, and very short lived so Im not sure it'd be feasible to detect that signal from the overpowering energy output from more conventional processes in those stars.
But it'd certainly be interesting to at least take the idea seriously and have a proper look at it
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Neutron stars are so dense than nothing other than very long wave radio waves will escape from the core. Everything else will come from the surface.
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So. . . they're entirely composed of politicians ??? (grin)
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ok. (Score:1)
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OK, who let a college football scholar into Slashdot??
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Validating theories, which can then be applied elsewhere
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Tenure. It's about publishing so you can get tenure and never have to leave campus and find a job.
Does mere "publishing" create that much actual value to keep those who refuse to leave the campus, around?
Students spending $20K/year on education would really like to know...so would the rest of the "publishing" community that's about to get dragged to the bottom of the clickbait pool. (sorry, but this "justification" tends to scream quantity over quality, which is exactly what has destroyed the integrity of the MSM).
Re: ok. (Score:4, Interesting)
Says the guy who is jealous and has never achieved anything of value for humanity in his life. (And it was not your fault. At all.)
No, money for money's sake is not an achievement. Nor is having things. It is a substitute. Like a drug.
People like to see more meaning in their life than being a hedonist or nihilist. Neither of those things (money & stuff) are bad. But by themselves, they are pointless.
Finding out things about the universe... exploring ... upgrading our abilities... now that's where the joy lies!
It's like sex for the higher mind.
And frankly, if your goal of life is not, to enjoy life and enable yourself to be free from having to do negative things like stupid work at stupid jobs, then you are doing life wrong. (Again... we're all trained into that role, so while it is wrong ... it is not your fault.)
I wish, for you, to *own* machines that automate all the work away, and give you all the amenities of life, and wonderful wealth, for basically-free, so you can focus on some fun and fascinating things that you like, too.
And frankly, my day job *is* in making that a reality for everyone. I work for you to be out of a job some day... but not out of money or things or power or the ability to work on what you like. Not out of a profession.
Re: ok. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a good question.
But usually, you can usually only find out, by making the science first.
Nobody would have preedicted that a simple problem with properly calculating the energy radiated from a cooking plate / black body would have led to supercomputers in your pocket and frickin lasers and finding out how birds can see magnetic fields.
Or that the theories of relativity would be required to make GPS possible.
Yes, it can be totally useless. That is always an option.
But you cannot know in advance. With possibilities come applications.
So you pay with some useless things for other very much awesome things.
And frankly, it's pretty cool that we can afford to even find out such uttery crazy things about the universe. ... the Casimir effect ... or the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. The more you think about it, the more it blows your mind.
Like
Re: ok. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, Uranium was used to make yellow glaze for pottery all through antiquity, it was not isolated as its own element until 1789, and it was not until 1896 that it was used to discover radioactivity, and another 40 years to 1934 to get to the point where it was understood to be useful to create fission power, that took 8 years until 1942 of dedicated government funded research to achieve basic fission, and then another 9 years until 1951 to make a reactor that actually generated electricity.
If you had told Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789 that in 162 years, we would be using the element he isolated to generate huge amounts of electricity, i very much doubt he would have believed it. It was just a useless black powder.
Re:What's in a name. (Score:4, Informative)
The element was discovered from atomic testing and Einstein became the face of the Atomic Bomb program even if his theoretical contributions were Relatively small. Fermi, Mendeleev, and Lawrence got the next 3 elements and they're all pretty worthy contenders at far as relevant work in chemical and nuclear physics.
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The element was discovered from atomic testing and Einstein became the face of the Atomic Bomb program even if his theoretical contributions were Relatively small. Fermi, Mendeleev, and Lawrence got the next 3 elements and they're all pretty worthy contenders at far as relevant work in chemical and nuclear physics.
Thanks for the detail. Fair recognition indeed. Tends to make you wonder how they came up with "californium".
Then again, it's probably for the best we use generic names these days. The way society is going, Einstein is at risk of being "cancelled" because he was too smart, and therefore "racist" against those with normal intelligence. We would spend millions, changing all those textbooks and charts...
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Tends to make you wonder how they came up with "californium".
Seriously?
Me: Google "californium" [google.com], click Wikipedia page for Californium [wikipedia.org], read first paragraph:
Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), [...] The element was named after the university and the U.S. state of California.
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Tends to make you wonder how they came up with "californium".
Seriously?
Me: Google "californium" [google.com], click Wikipedia page for Californium [wikipedia.org], read first paragraph:
Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), [...] The element was named after the university and the U.S. state of California.
I didn't say where the name came from, and I'm aware of the history. The part they left out was the meeting behind the science lab at 4:20 where they came up with that name for an element. Again, probably for the best that it's quite generic these days. Or at least until California gets cancelled.
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Re: What's in a name. (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be wrong, if, of all people, Einstein did not get to be the name of some things. The guy is literally the icon for "science". And deservedly so.
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It would be wrong, if, of all people, Einstein did not get to be the name of some things. The guy is literally the icon for "science". And deservedly so.
Fair point, and you're correct. Well-deserved recognition.
I cringe thinking about the future when "Kardashionite" is named. Societal values, shift considerably.
Re: What's in a name. (Score:2)
Kardashionite. Amorphous crystalline substance with no known use. Smells faintly of faeces.
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Just to be pedantic (Score:1)
Chemistry involves the study and use of the properties of elements and their compounds. Creating new non naturally occuring elements or any action involving the atomic nucleus rather than the electron shell is the province of nuclear physicists.
Re:Just to be pedantic (Score:5, Informative)
Pedantry still must give way to reading comprehension: if you had read TFA, you would have found that synthesizing einsteinium was just a prerequisite to actually studying its properties. Once they had this tiny quantity of the material, they measured things like its bond length (they found it bucks the trend of other actinides) and how it interacts with light (it luminesces in unexpected ways). Those phenomena are mostly governed by electron interactions, and are most definitely in the realm of chemistry.
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It says right at the top of the page in TFS: "Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) at the University of California".
They both synthesized the sample *and* did the chemistry experiments on it. These activities are not mutually exclusive.
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Good thing I was talking about the synthesizing of the element itself wasn't it then.
Sorry. I didn't realize that you decided to exclusively focus on just half of the topic for no reason, then make a pointless post about it that nobody asked for.
My bad.
Oh, and keep it classy.
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Not my fault you're thick is it. And speaking of pointless posts, you seem to be the master at them so I'll bow to your great experience in the matter,.
It's all a joke (Score:3)
I assume this Island of Stability is nowhere near Washington.
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I assume this Island of Stability is nowhere near Washington.
State or DC? [... reads news ...] Never mind, "or" is the wrong conjunction...
Perhaps a bit off-topic, but (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone really interested in elements and the Periodic Table should read "The Disappearing Spoon" by Sam Kean. It's an excellent and entertaining history of the Table and the scientists who created and added to it, and digs into the characteristics and behaviours of elements. I just finished reading it about a week ago.
Island of Stability doesn't exist (Score:2)
Either the Island of stability doesn't exist, or we will never ever ever ever dream of creating enough energy to create it. I mean, think about it. If it doesn't occur naturally then it couldn't even be created in supernova.
We aren't ever going to match the energy of a supernova. We aren't going to ever discover an island of stability that doesn't already exist in nature.
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I mean, think about it. If it doesn't occur naturally then it couldn't even be created in supernova.
>
Stability is relative. The island of stability could mean half-lives in milliseconds instead of microseconds. But these very heavy nuclei will never hang around long enough to cross light-years from a supernova to the next nearest star.
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So? Other than knowledge for knowledge sake, what good is an element that can last 1 millisecond over 1 nanosecond? At that length of time, it's just academic.
Re: Island of Stability doesn't exist (Score:5, Informative)
I think stability is a relative term, as some of these "stable" superheavy elements are still only thought to live for minutes or days. I'm not sure anyone is arguing there are elements in the island of stability that are truly stable (infinite half lives by fission). Therefore for us to detect them from a supernova, they must be created and a) get to us with enough abundance and before they decay so we may directly detect them, or b) detect them via their spectral signatures, which we will only know by first creating them on earth and studying their spectral properties.
While a supernova is a LOT of energy, it doesn't just create all elements possible. There are a set of available elements that the star made prior to supernova, and nucleosynthesis happens based upon those starting materials. In addition, much of the products of the supernova are pulled into the resulting black hole or neutron star. The ones that escape are produced from shock-wave burning after the initial implosion.
As far as we know, only about half of the trans-iron elements are made during the r-process, which is a neutron capture process activated during a supernova.
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The island of stability has isotopes with predicted half lives of hundreds to possibly even over 1000 years. The problem is that the required number of neutrons to create these isotopes is beyond the capabilities of our current techniques of manmade nucleosynthesis. All of the superheavy postactinide elements we have been able to create have been made with fewer neutrons.
For instance the heaviest isotope of Copernicium we've been able to create is 286, whereas the more stable isotopes are expected to be aro
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(It might also be possible to create them in a sufficiently large array of fusion bombs surrounding a heavy-element core, but almost everything created would be instantly destroyed in the process, and it would be very, VERY hard to hunt down the rest in the messy radioactive debris. Not to mention the fact that you're detonating large fusion bombs makes it a bit impractical.)
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There appears to be a LOT of disagreement over these lifetimes, since they can only be modeled. But from what I can tell, models are confident that it will be >>seconds.
I agree that we don't currently have the technology to make the superheavies in the island of stability (otherwise we already would have). My comment is in response to the parent, that says that we can never do it. Not knowing how is different than never being able to do it. Which is sort of the point of the article - Es may be a l
"It doesn't occur naturaly" isn't literal. (Score:2)
If it doesn't occur naturally then it couldn't even be created in supernova.
"It doesn't occur naturaly" isn't literal.
It doesn't mean "it couldn't even be created in supernova".
It means "its half life is short enough that any of it that was incorporated into the Earth, the meteoroids that strike it, the Sun (where large amounts would be detectable by their spectrum, as with the discovery of Helium), or other readily observable site has decayed to below detectable levels in the million of years since it was
Island of stability and lifetime (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really cool achievement, with interesting results. A minor issue with the summary (and article): the island of stability is not where the shortest-lived elements reside. Quite the opposite, it's where the longest-lived of the superheavy elements are thought to reside. They still may have half-lives of only minutes to days, by some estimates, but that's an eternity compared to nearby elements with half-lives of microseconds to seconds. It also means that they may be long-lived enough for chemists interact with them and study their chemical properties in depth.
Chemists don't make elements. (Score:3)
Only nuclear physicists and Iron Man make elements.
What about bolonium? (Score:1)