Element 118!

[artwdrahn]

Well holy shit.
Slashdot posted an article about some physicists have managed to make some of Element 118.  Hot news as it's supposed to be one of the stable noble gases.  I can't read the scientific jargon to know how long the thing actually lasted for, but I'm sure it was made in some kind of nuclear reaction so the odds are not long.  Still that

Comments

[moogle_master]

Why is this exciting?

[dlowber]

NEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

We all are. Perhaps you forgot.

[moogle_master]

Hehehe, no I didn't forget. I honestly don't understand what's exciting about it though. Unless we can use it for some purpose, forcing it into an existence so short that we aren't able to sense it's presence directly is kinda cool, but ultimately irrelevent.

[dlowber]

Until you let Gordon Freeman shove the cart containing the atoms into a giant, glowing beam. After that, things get very interesting.

I for one will not name my pet headcrab "Lamar". I think "The Destroyer of Worlds" is a great nickname for any pet.

And I won't de-tooth it either. I'm going to go around to all my most hated professors and kill them. Total deniability. "Well, a tiny beast with massive claws and teeth jumped onto Professor Dillhole's head and sucked out his brains".

No one will believe it.......until it's too late, and my zombie army rules the world! Just like the last LAN party. You should ask Jeremy about my zombie army. He really liked it.

[trillinon]

It's alchemy. I mean anyone could turn lead into gold, but they just turned californium into ununoctium. And that's just cool.

[artwdrahn]

It's exciting because it's helping us flesh out what exactly goes on in the higher energy states of an atom. Also because of the Island of Stability in chemistry which in short is this theoretical point where everything will get more stable allowing more time to study it. That's why it's exciting. And we are forcing them into existence just to see if they stick around long enough.

[artwdrahn]

oh and fusion reactions. Though this is all theoretical stuff that I can't really claim to understand.

Where it is on the periodic table is cool because it's "technically" considered to be a Noble Gas so it should be relatively low reactivity and be more stable... In theory.