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New US Lab To Create Versions of Atoms Never Recorded on Earth (theguardian.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
From carbon to uranium, oxygen to iron, chemical elements are the building blocks of the world around us and the wider universe. Now, physicists are hoping to gain an unprecedented glimpse into their origins, with the opening of a new facility that will create thousands of peculiar and unstable versions of atoms never before recorded on Earth. From a report: By studying these versions, known as isotopes, they hope to gain new insights into the reactions that created the elements within exploding stars, as well as testing theories about the "strong force" -- one of the four fundamental forces in nature, which binds protons and neutrons together in an atom's nucleus. The facility could also yield new isotopes for medical use. Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. The number of protons dictates an atom's chemical behaviour and which element it is -- eg carbon always has six protons, and gold 79 -- whereas atoms of the same element containing different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes. Because many isotopes are unstable and decay quickly -- sometimes within fractions of a second -- scientists have only studied a small proportion of those thought to exist.
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New US Lab To Create Versions of Atoms Never Recorded on Earth More

New US Lab To Create Versions of Atoms Never Recorded on Earth

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  • Cmon msmash,

    This was your BEST opportunity to change the title to something more bait-y and accurate:

    > US Lab to begin transmuting elements for science and medicine

  • While this is cutting edge nuclear science, it is readily explained in terms a high school science student should be able to understand. Both TFA and the summary look like they're trying to dumb it down to the third-grade reading level.

    The reasons that certain nuclear configurations (ex., U238) are more stable than others (ex., U235) might require considerable explanation. The reason certain theoretically possible nucleonic configurations are uncommon (including some which have never been identified as being found in nature) is also highly complex and might require some expanation. The difference between hydrogen and deuterium, however, should be reasonably understood by /. readers without being dumbed down to the third-grade level.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      FWIW, *I* don't understand the difference between Hydrogen and Deuterium. I can tell you certain things about names attached to parts of the difference, but that's not understanding.

      E.g., "Why is it unhealthy to drink too much heavy water?". I know that it is, but I don't know why.

      • E.g., "Why is it unhealthy to drink too much heavy water?". I know that it is, but I don't know why.

        IIRC, this is because deuterium is much heavier than hydrogen (100% increase!), and that affects chemical reaction kinetics enough to mess with biological processes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          That's clearly true, and expected. That, however, is a "how" answer. But "why" is much more difficult. (I suspect it's basically unanswerable, but I'm not certain.)

          There are *some* questions where that kind of answer can be provided. E.g.:
          1 + 1 = 2
          Why?
          Because we arbitrarily decided to call 2 to be they symbol representing the answer to what's 1+1. (Actually it wasn't quite arbitrary. Originally they tried to have as many line segments in the symbol for the number as the value of the number, but this d

    • Indeed (the summary is just the first three paragraphs of the article). You have to get 10 paragraphs in before there is a single sentence about the topic of the story, which is not "isotopes" but the FRIB (though it does get a just-the-name reference in paragraph five).

  • Poor summary, cool science (Score:4, Interesting)

    by werepants ( 1912634 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @03:28PM (#62539964)

    So, a couple things that aren't made clear in the summary:

    New elements are generally synthesized using particle accelerators... the elements that have yet to be discovered (or at least, experimentally confirmed) generally aren't encountered in day-to-day life because they are extremely unstable, sometimes having half-lives in the nanosecond range.

    So, this is a new accelerator facility in the US, which is pretty exciting and will hopefully be a tremendous asset for scientists and engineers for years to come... there are only a handful of said facilities currently in the US, and most of them are several decades old, and maintenance is a serious struggle. That said, even the existing accelerators continue to do some impressive science, including discovery and verification of new elements. In the beam cave at the LBNL cyclotron, for instance, for many years they have had a periodic table up on the wall where scientists add their newly discovered elements with a sharpie. :)

    • Is this one in the ballpark of the Island of Stability?

      • Re:Poor summary, cool science (Score:5, Informative)

        by dfm3 ( 830843 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @07:33PM (#62540812) Journal
        From what I gather from TFA (it's dumbed down but not as badly as the summary), they are looking for isotopes among elements that have fewer protons than uranium. The island of stability is hypothesized to exist around element 126 or higher, if it exists at all. Rather, they are looking to create isotopes that are far above or below the band of stability [carolina.com]. In most cases, the farther one gets from this line, the shorter the half-life, and different proton-neutron ratios undergo different types of decay, but they are searching in hopes of finding a 'sweet spot' where one or more isotopes far from the band of stability has a half-life that is long enough to make it useful for study.

      • Is this one in the ballpark of the Island of Stability?

        You are asking, in other words, whether they are attempting to synthesize undiscovered superheavy elements, or new isotopes of the very heaviest ones.

        The challenge there is not really building accelerators, it is working out a synthesis strategy.

        The fundamental problems are that the higher the atomic number, the larger the excess ratio of neutrons required for stability and that you cannot use any superheavy nucleus as a starting point as they are already so hard to make that they are too scarce for any add

  • Creating our own atoms with knowing what it will yield. Whatever could possibly go wrong.

    • How do you think anything was discovered? With that attitude, no experiment would ever be performed. Wheat, corn, and rice wouldn't even exist in their present edible and nutritious form because they are the result of hybridization experiments.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The last words from humans will be "Wonder what happens if you push this button?"

    • Ignorant buffoons could somehow interfere with the research?

      We know exactly what this research will yield - atoms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Well, most of them will probably blow up.

  • Before they unexpectedly move the whole thing to Albuquerque.

  • What a weird term! Never heard that before! lol.

  • make me... say.... 20 blocks of bullion. chop chop.

  • Really now, if you want peculiar and unstable atoms just go to San Francisco instead of spending good money on electronuclear positronic mungerators.

  • ,God would have created them.

    This will make God angry.

    You do not want angry God.

    • He did, Supernovas, and even more so colliding neutron stars make (very short lived) isotopes no terrestrial experiment can duplicate. If god didn't want us to study physics, he wouldn't have given us a fascination with things that go boom!

  • Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. The number of protons dictates an atom's chemical behaviour and which element it is -- eg carbon always has six protons

    Thanks msmash, but do you have the slightest fucking idea of the demographics of the website that employs you??

  • We just need to find that stable isotope of Element 115. Piece of cake!

  • radio active.
    find a solution

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