Stable Roentgenium Claimed Found In Gold 160
Posted
by
timothy
from the check-your-wedding-band dept.
from the check-your-wedding-band dept.
eldavojohn writes "Amnon Marinov, a physicist specializing in super heavy elements, claims that a stable isotope of roentgenium is commonly found alongside gold, just in very small quantities that we could not measure before. To prove this, he boiled gold in a vacuum, postulating that as the gold evaporated, the roentgenium should remain. He did this for two weeks and then passed the resulting mess through a mass spectrometer and was left with several peaks that could be explained away except for one. Marinov lead the team that found the first super heavy 122 thorium isotope in nature a few years back and now claims that, despite all indications that this super heavy element shouldn't exist longer than a few seconds, he has found a stable isomer of roentgenium in nature. Is he on to something, or overlooking a simpler explanation in his quest for evidence of the island of stability long theorized by physicists?"
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Simply boil all your gold into vapor, and you'll have an even more valuable collection of roentgenium. You won't be able to see it, but it's there, trust me.
If you have any further questions you can ask my operative, conveniently located outside your house looking after a totally unrelated condensing jar.
Re:Interesting if true (Score:5, Funny)
I'm also wondering how Marinov suspected it would be in gold. The only link I can find is that they're both group 11 elements, but by that logic you should be able to find tellurium in sulfur, which isn't the case.
Of course not, everyone knows that elements form their cliques based on their classification, not the group # they've been assigned. This is why you see Hydrogen sleeping around with all the other non-metals and not really with any of the Alkali Metals. Everyone knows that Sulfur is a non-metal and Tellurium is a metalloid, and metalloids are known for being really a really exclusive group - they wouldn't even let Aluminium in despite her flexible standards.
No, I'm pretty sure Marinov studied the social situation amongst the elements pretty closely and determined that transitional metals - since they are going through puberty - are noticing all those really weird little changes. I mean gold has become a little more malleable to the ladies, copper and silver are noticing their skin has started conducting these little tiny dots.
Its only a natural part that Gold has started to notice its growing a new element in odd places. Don't be worried, its all part of the process.
Re:Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle (Score:5, Funny)
Snape kills Dumbledore