I'm a public librarian in the US who works with kids and was able to recommend your videos to a kid who is a budding chemist. He thought you sounded cool! Thank you!
I sometimes dream of being a professor of Chemistry but unfortunately i dropped out of school and my life at the moment is not going in the direction of university. In that dream i look like Martyn
@@periodicvideos Thank you. I am not a chemistry person myself but I love hearing about all the new developments in the field. I hope they subscribe to your channel and love them as much as I do.
@@whoeveriam0iam14222Lots of smart people dropped out of school. Chart your own path and you’ll probably come right back around to where you want to be.
I love at about 1:52, when the professor is using his toys to explain how two atoms fuse together, he says "you can see it's quite a hard process," as if the properties of his model were analogous to those of actual atomic fusion.
Heat wouldn't level a city, the kinetic energy released from the confinement chamber traveling through the atmosphere would. I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't be able to melt a city with one ounce of hydrogen in any case, no matter the temperature. Heat also doesn't produce heat unless you're talking about the flash point of a material, and even then it becomes an exothermic chemical reaction.
@@anoobis117 _"Heat wouldn't level a city, the kinetic energy released from the confinement chamber traveling through the atmosphere would. "_ And pray tell, where would that kinetic energy come from???? My guess would be heat. The Einsteins on the internet are starting to sound like Kamala. _"Heat also doesn't produce heat unless you're talking about the flash point of a material, and even then it becomes an exothermic chemical reaction."_ This Einstein has never heard of fusion... I didn't think that was possible.
@@nathanwoodruff9422 You seem triggered, bro. And bringing up politics here is pretty weird. Most people in the world don't live in the US and many of them don't know who "Kamala" even is.
I was never taught this in senior school how these processes were done it was only one black and white dull textbook. 😢 Great to see the insight and also great explanation from the professor with animation.🎉🎉🎉 I wish i had youtube in my time. Now i am self taught in quantum mechanics. 😮 Never stop learning. Thumbs up and subs
PBS Spacetime also did a video on this a few days ago. Apparently it might be easier to identify these new super-heavy elements in neutron star mergers than it would be to make them ourselves!
It read a book years ago that did calculations on what nuclear species would be in the crust of a neutron star.. they thought with the excessive numbers of neutrons available, the neutron drip line would be much more conducive to making elements that had possibly as many as twice as many neutrons as they had protons but would result in nuclei that are so unstable, that once they removed from this environment they would immediately decay by fission, or inverse beta decay. They had a chart and it suggested that species like iron 100 would be possible, and that as the neutron star got heavier and heavier much heavier versions were possible
I never finished college or took any chemistry classes. I feel like I missed my calling as a chemist. Ive learned so much from this channel and I find chemistry so interesting. I used to do experiments as a kid with those chemistry sets. Thanks for the years of great content!
Provavelmente ele deve ser baseado na tentativa real de síntese do Elemento 120 (Umbinilium) realizada pelo grande Glenn Theodor Seaborg em 1972, a qual infelizmente não obteve êxito! Ele tentou a seguinte reação: Cf-249 + Cr-54 => Ubn-303 + n
i think it's crazy that some people might have seen the professor growing up and may be one of the first peoplke to discover these new super heavy elements
3:21 - Scandium is not very useful for this kind of experiment exacttly because of its neutron number. The only stable isotope of scandium has 24 neutrons compared to the 28-30 for calcium, titanium, vanadium and chromium.
It depends on a lot of factors. Each isotope of an element carries with it a certain binding energy and certain configurations have less binding energy than other ones resulting in that the resulting combined nucleus needs to remove less energy with the neutrons that come flying out. Problem is some elements only have a single isotope
To answer some questions in the video: Scandium is not used because its stable isotope is of mass number 45, so having fewer neutrons than calcium 48; heavier isotopes of scandium are highly radioactive. Titanium 50 is stable but rare (like calcium 48 is for practical purposes); vanadium 51 is stable and so common that you don't need to isotope-separate it; chromium 54 is stable but rare. And you need for the projectile AND target to be as neutron-rich as you can get, because the superheavy elements need to be even more neutron-rich to get the longest alpha decay half life, and the collisions used to make them tend to throw off neutrons because those are more numerous than the protons, and therefore more easily knocked off despite the electrostatic repulsion trying to push the protons out. Problem is that when you get enough neutrons to get the longest alpha decay half-life, then the nuclei rapidly undergo spontaneous fission. This is already a barrier to trying to make elements heavier than fermium by progressively adding neutrons as was done to make the transuranium elements up to fermium. The heaviest isotopes of fermium and nobelium undergo spontaneous fission in microseconds to milliseconds (except 1.5 seconds for fermium 259). So I suspect that the "Island of Stability" is going to turn out to be a mirage, just like the one we were supposed to have around element 114 (flerovium).
Yes you have carefully balanced the incoming energy so that the resultant Mass hasn't got so much eccess energy that extra neutrons flying off can stabilize it for a short while
I really enjoy the professor's enthusiasm for nuclear chemistry and the new elements. He hasn't lost his excitement for new developments in his field like many experts do as they get older.
I'm retired but do so love these videos. Everything is explained so clearly. If life on this Earth were extended, I would pursue many additional degrees, and I believe Chemistry and Physics would be the first. Once the building blocks and their interactions are understood, so many other things would fall into place. As an aside, I seem to recall Seaborg predicting the islands of stability (although others may have preceded, that's one that stuck with me) I wonder if anyone has theorized which Groups those islands might likely fall under?
Excellent video. Suggestion for future video- I believe that several years ago a similar process was used to turn lead into gold, thus finally fulfilling the dream of centuries of alchemists. Problem was that it took many thousands of dollars of energy to make a few dollars of gold. Would love to hear Sir Professor flesh out the story.
@@garethdean6382 Yep. You might be able to get there by hitting iridium with a helium nucleus, but im not sure that that is a favorable reaction, and iridium is even more rare than gold. Also, while Au197 is observationally stable, it is predicted to actually decay, just with an extremely long half life.
I love chemistry so much, I’m convinced it’s why I was put on earth. Thank you so much for these videos, it’s so fascinating seeing every single element layed out in such great videos.
10 years ago in a school project we calculated the suitable projectile speed to make element 119 with Lead projectile and Rubidium target, at 0.10415c. Was a fun excercise playing with Maple to solve the relativistic inelastic collision equation.
@@djcfrompt _"And fusion is always five years away!"_ Fusion will always be five years away as making a commercial fusion device for home use would be far too easy to turn into a device that could twice level any city on the planet. There is already a device that when started will use standard tap water to extract hydrogen from and will produce enough power from 32oz of water to power ~100 homes of your closest neighbors for about 2 weeks on that 32oz of tap water. The only problem is the problem stated above. That device is also capable of twice leveling any city. 5 people on this planet know how to make one. All 5 have stated that they are going to take it to their grave.
I was genuinely mystified by the professor's comments about the word "pinkie" as that's what I've called it my whole life. On checking a few dictionaries it seems pinkie is the Scottish name for the little finger, and is also used in the US and Canada, but I can't believe it isn't also used in England and the rest of the UK. Or have I just gone through my whole life until now not noticing or realising that other people in the UK don't use that name at all? But the rest of the video was also interesting and intriguing, thank you 😄😛
Same here. As someone who was brought up in Scotland and lived here all my life, I assumed it was a trans-British word and am tickled to discover it isn’t. I can’t say I’ve noticed pinky/pinkie being referred to in North American film or tv - but then why would you if it’s a word you use yourself?
The combination of Ti-50 and Cf-249, resulting in Ubn-295 or Ubn-296, does not result in a favorable combination, considering that these nuclides are above the main stability line for this element. The mass of the isotopes with the longest half-lives must be in the vicinity of Ubn-313, Ubn-316 and Ubn-317. Those with mass 295 and 296 will disintegrate quickly. The idea was to insert more neutrons into the reaction, or use heavier Titanium and/or Californium isotopes.
Since changing the "bullet" atom from Calcium to a heavier one is already a major challenge, is there a reason to not try with even heavier elements as bullets? For example Strontium (just below Calcium in the table)?
Especially when you’re hitting a barrier with Calcium, Titanium moves you just two elements further before hitting the same barrier. But it remains to be seen if the principles to go from Calcium to Titanium can be applied to incrementally heavier “bullets”.
You run into issues with the energy. The heavier a nucleus the higher energy it needs to overcome repulsion and fuse, but that higher energy can destroy your product. This is why 'silicon fusion' in stars process via alpha particles and not Si-Si- collisions. Getting strontium to work is an unsolved problem.
I remember listening to a guy talking at TRIUMF use the word Barnes, which is the cross section of capture for certain nuclear reactions. And it's an incredibly small area equivalent
Thank you for your videos! May I make a suggestion? Id love to see a video which is a sort of wrap-up of the Periodic Table. Like a 10-15-20? minute video that spends a moment on each element. Maybe the ficus would what would a student need for their exam? Just an idea!! Thank you. Lovely channel for many years!!!❤❤❤
They don't use scandium because its only stable isotope has a neutron excess of only three neutrons and you need a larger excess to get a product with enough neutrons to stay stable long enough to be detected. calcium 48 has an excess of eight neutrons, as does titanium 52. vanadium 51 only has an excess of five and chromium 60 of six, so titanium should be the way to go to get element 120, but I assume it doesn't work because we would have produced element 120 before now.
@@ThePeterDislikeShowThe nucleus also has a shell structure and certain configurations are more or less stable than others ("magic numbers"). Also, sometimes certain decay modes are super-allowed, like in Sn-100, which massively decreases their half-life (cf. Superallowed Gamow-Teller Decay of the Doubly Magic Nucleus Sn-100).
I had to look up what you meant about the American vs British billion and trillion. When I was a kid, I was taught a billion was a million millions. After coming to the USA, I felt a bit silly, as if I had been taught wrong since here a billion is one thousand millions. I felt the same regarding the number of continents, how they do maths, and so on……. I’ve learned to adapt overtime as I travel the world and get exposed to even more ways of thinking.
Making higher number elements in certain ways would allow for those to decay into more stable versions of the other ones, and the advancements technology required for either goal helps with the other.
"For reasons that I, as a simple chemist, don't understand, making even-numbered elements is a bit easier than making odd-numbered elements." He is joking here, I assume, since even as a chemist I'm sure he knows it has to do with electron shells. This is one reason it makes sense to learn physics before diving into chemistry, never understood why the other order is so common in schools.
Part of me wonders what interesting properties these super heavy elements could have if you could some how, make them not decay as soon as they exist, and make enough of them to *do* something with them. Its fun to speculate i guess
I’ve heard that we can make those elements but they are missing neutrons to make stable isotope. Because of this, we only make unstable isotope that have short lives.
For anyone wondering why going for element 120 is "easier" than going for element 119. 1. Nuclei with an even number of protons AND an even number of neutrons tend to be more stable than nuclei with an even number of protons OR an even number of neutrons which tend to be more stable than nuclei with an odd number of protons AND an odd number of neutrons 2. Stable elements with and even number of protons have a stable isotope with the same number of neutrons as the next heavier element. Oftem the ligther elment can have to extra neutrons and still be stable and in some cases even 4 more e.g. Ca48 vs Sc45. (Ingoring insane long half live; Ca48 is radioactive but it's half live is more than one billion times the age of the universe) This is true for radioactive elements too, to some extend. Even number elements tend have more stable isotops. This can be seen on the nuclid chart. This is a consequence of 1. All nuclei of superheavy element we have produced so far have a large neutron deficit. The most stable isotopes need about 10 more neutrons according to our predictions, so extra neutrons are needed. Why not just use even heavier nuclei than Ti50? 1. There are no combinations where both the traget and beam nuclei are (resanable) stable. Isotopes with a half life under one year are basicly unusable. 2. If the "bullet" nuclei are heavier it increases the chance to completly destroy the target nuclei and no fusion occurs. Why is it not possible to ecject protons for the superheavy nuclei? This seams resonable because these nuclei lack neutrons so ejecting protons should create nuclei wiht a better ration of protons to neutrons. The problem: quantum tunneling (or the lack there of) The superheavy nucleus is in a highly excited stat, it is energetically possible to release multiple protons or neutrons. If an protons leaves the nucleus it needs to tunnel through the electric barrier. If the proton leaves the range of the strong force it would need a lot of energy because of the electric repulsion. If it does not have this energy the only why out is quantum tunneling, this happens very fast in the order of nanoseconds depending on the excition energy. Neutrons however have no electric barrier because they have no charge. They INSTANTLY leave the nucleus; in the order of 10^-22 seconds this about the time need to cross a nuclei at ~10% the speed of light. Because of this neutron virtually always leave first and take away the energy.
I know even less about nuclear physics than the venerable professor, but I do know that for whatever reason, calcium-48 decays only by double beta decay. It is hindered by the higher energy of surrounding nuclei I guess, because 20 protons and 28 neutrons are both magic numbers. Double beta decay means two neutrons decaying into protons and electrons (and usually antineutrinos) simultaneously, making it extremely rare. (In fact, it is the rarest type of nuclear decay observed.) So even though the nuclide is extremely neutron-rich, it is still nearly observationally stable, and practically stable for all purposes, with a half life way longer than the age of the universe. That means it is also a primordial nuclide on earth and constitutes a meaningful percentage of natural calcium (a whopping 0.2%). (Also, scandium is extremely expensive, for reasons I don't quite understand, so that's probably why other nearby elements are preferred over it.)
For the neutron ratio, heavier elements also need more neutrons to be stable against the electrostatic repulsion of the protons. While lighter elements usually are most stable around a 1:1 ratio, much heavier elements have an increasingly higher ratio; for example: Neodynium, element 60, has the most common ratio of ~1.37 neutrons per proton Mercury, element 80, has the most common ratio of 1.525 neutrons per proton Uranium, element 92, has the most stable ratio of ~1.587 neutrons per proton The problem is, with 2 lighter elements, the total ratio of neutrons to protons is often too low for the fusion product. Calcium-48 has a ratio of 1.4 neutrons to protons, which is much closer to the average for heavier elements than other isotopes in that range. Even then, we can see that, for example, the only isotope of Og produced has a ratio of ~1.49 neutrons to protons. Quite possibly a heavier isotope could be significantly more stable, but much more difficult to produce. For example, take Moscovium, element 115, for which a number of isotopes have been produced. The first two (discovered in the same set of experiments) produced Mc-287 and Mc-288. Later discoveries of Mc-289 and Mc-290 have significantly longer half-lifes, with Mc-290 having a significantly longer half-life (650 ms) compared to the others (250 ms, 193 ms, 38 ms, 20 ms) which suggests that the most stable isotope could be significantly heavier.
Trying to make these heavier atoms reminds me of how I was in high school. Most my relationships were hard to get into, then exploded and I was just left with a handful of isotopes. C'est la vie.
I think that the reason why scandium hasn't been used is that it doesn't have any suitable isotopes. Its one stable isotope, Sc-45, would produce isotopes that are very, very low in neutrons (as opposed to the current methods, which produce isotopes that are just very low in neutrons).
We nuclear boys like even nuclei because the nuclear force is isoscalar, so each neutron and proton can pair up and make an iso singlet. The math is like spin up and spin down for electrons ….which is why it is called isospin. It’s just in quark flavor space, not real spin space, this is why the quarks are call up and down.
Professor, did you ever read "Atomgewicht 500" by Hans Dominik? I think it would interest you. It's brilliant science-fiction from the 1920s, and it's uncanny how he predicted some of the discoveries that have been made only in the last two decades or so.
We already have found all elements that are stable or have a long enough life to use them practical. The "island of stability" might include elements that are stable for minutes, perhaps hours or days, but they will never be stable enough to create enough material that you can even really see these elements. This experiments to create superheavy elements are only for testing theories and they are a kind of flexing your abilities to create them, but there will never be a real practical use for this elements.
If this works for 119 and 120, wouldn’t we need to find a new method for 121 and beyond? Shouldn’t we stick with the x0 elements, like with the lower elements which used neon and calcium, wouldn’t Zinc work?
The confusion probably originates in the fact that a billion in the UK used to be (and still is sometimes) a million million and a trillion a million million million, i.e. not a thousand million or a milllion million
"Trillion" - Long versus Short forms or scales -> this was sorted in the 1970s, at least for the UK. Ref: Wikipedia says, "Originally, the United Kingdom used the long scale trillion. However, since 1974, official UK statistics have used the short scale. Since the 1950s, the short scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long scale definition still has some limited usage. ... American English has always used the short scale definition."
Quantum mechanically spoken even numbered atoms have nuclei with lower discrete energy levels than their uneven numbered “cousins”, hence they are ‘easier’ to create.
It's very intriguing to me, that nature tolerates 'odd' elements. But making 'even' elements seems easier for humans. Can't wait for the production of negative elements to start, now we've discovered neg helium.
Question: Couldn´t you let 3 or more atoms collide into one spot from 3 or more different angles instead of using one superheavy (here Californium) and one moderately weighing atom like Ca ? Common colliders are having only one toroid in a plane. One could use the 3rd space for angled planes of toroids as well.
I'm surprised at 7:16 he referenced confusion between long and short scales. I was under the impression that milliards, billiards, etc were deprecated terms.
I am not sure if my quick search is correct, but I found that even number of elements are more balanced, creating a more stable element. With the odd number of elements, you have an unbalanced level of electrons. Of course, there are other factors to consider, but that would be complicated to explain or understand, for myself.
One other feature not cited in this video is if we go beyond 120, such as 124 or 126, there is the opportunity to examine the g-shell... Does it exist, or is now fused with the F-shell or even d-shell.
My problem with naming elements is that the new method is just to name them after a famous place or person. Why not a chemical of physics reaction - oxygen is acid(oxy) forming(gen) - or some sort sort of characteristics - rubidium has a red line in its spectrum. The Ti used to hold it made me think of actually using it for the actual atoms. You hit the Ti on the other side and make it hit the Pu or put the Pu in between two and vibrate them piezo-style or something else. The Ca atoms not hitting the Pu made me think of quantum tunneling. Weird quantum effects are needed to fuse hydrogen in the sun so I have no idea how that might help.
The periodic table is recursive, so there's no way to disrupt the table. You could easily write the table out to 200, 300, 400, whatever arbitrary number you want. We may not know the pattern, but you can draw it out according to the most predicted pattern Basically, whether we discover an element or not is totally irrelevant to the shape of the table
Exploring the chemical properties might give you another reason to skip 119. As any chemist knows, the Group I metals increase in reactivity as the atoms become larger. Thus, lithium is a bit boring, sodium is far more interesting, potassium is pretty exciting and caesium is downright scary. I don't know if francium is sufficiently long-lived for people to have done much chemistry with it, but the trend suggests it should be even more reactive than caesium (in the which case, yikes!). Element 119 would have to be more reactive than francium if the trend continues . . .
It's utterly crazy how much effort it takes just to achieve 1 or 2 succeessful atoms of a new element.. The process is just absurd. I wonder if they could combine their methods With also using high strength magnetic fields, high pressure environments, high temperatures or a vacuum environment or cold temperatures.. maybe electrical impulses, plasma, high voltages in any sorta combination maybe any of these factors could improve the process in this field of science?
I'm a public librarian in the US who works with kids and was able to recommend your videos to a kid who is a budding chemist. He thought you sounded cool! Thank you!
I sometimes dream of being a professor of Chemistry but unfortunately i dropped out of school and my life at the moment is not going in the direction of university. In that dream i look like Martyn
Great to hear.
@@periodicvideos Thank you. I am not a chemistry person myself but I love hearing about all the new developments in the field. I hope they subscribe to your channel and love them as much as I do.
@whoeveriam0iam14222 as long as you're not being a street chemist
@@whoeveriam0iam14222Lots of smart people dropped out of school. Chart your own path and you’ll probably come right back around to where you want to be.
I love at about 1:52, when the professor is using his toys to explain how two atoms fuse together, he says "you can see it's quite a hard process," as if the properties of his model were analogous to those of actual atomic fusion.
@@DouglasZwick it looks as if he’s force-feeding a diseased pac-man with a squash ball.
“You can see it’s quite a hard process…” Professor Poliakoff is truly a legend.
Professor, I want you to know you were a big part of my learning journey. Thank you! You're a true gift to the world :)
How lovely to hear.
For reference, 6 trillion atoms a second for 22 days is around 1 milligram of titanium 50.
Also for reference 1 oz of liquid hydrogen and enough heat in a confined space in 1 billionth of a second will produce enough heat to level any city.
Heat wouldn't level a city, the kinetic energy released from the confinement chamber traveling through the atmosphere would. I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't be able to melt a city with one ounce of hydrogen in any case, no matter the temperature. Heat also doesn't produce heat unless you're talking about the flash point of a material, and even then it becomes an exothermic chemical reaction.
@@anoobis117 _"Heat wouldn't level a city, the kinetic energy released from the confinement chamber traveling through the atmosphere would. "_
And pray tell, where would that kinetic energy come from???? My guess would be heat.
The Einsteins on the internet are starting to sound like Kamala.
_"Heat also doesn't produce heat unless you're talking about the flash point of a material, and even then it becomes an exothermic chemical reaction."_
This Einstein has never heard of fusion... I didn't think that was possible.
@@nathanwoodruff9422 You seem triggered, bro. And bringing up politics here is pretty weird. Most people in the world don't live in the US and many of them don't know who "Kamala" even is.
@@nathanwoodruff9422 We don't use oz in science, we use cubic meters.
I was never taught this in senior school how these processes were done it was only one black and white dull textbook. 😢 Great to see the insight and also great explanation from the professor with animation.🎉🎉🎉 I wish i had youtube in my time. Now i am self taught in quantum mechanics. 😮
Never stop learning. Thumbs up and subs
PBS Spacetime also did a video on this a few days ago. Apparently it might be easier to identify these new super-heavy elements in neutron star mergers than it would be to make them ourselves!
It read a book years ago that did calculations on what nuclear species would be in the crust of a neutron star.. they thought with the excessive numbers of neutrons available, the neutron drip line would be much more conducive to making elements that had possibly as many as twice as many neutrons as they had protons but would result in nuclei that are so unstable, that once they removed from this environment they would immediately decay by fission, or inverse beta decay.
They had a chart and it suggested that species like iron 100 would be possible, and that as the neutron star got heavier and heavier much heavier versions were possible
I never finished college or took any chemistry classes. I feel like I missed my calling as a chemist. Ive learned so much from this channel and I find chemistry so interesting. I used to do experiments as a kid with those chemistry sets. Thanks for the years of great content!
We need more element 115 🛸 👽😆
Love to see the professor doing well in his office.
Glenn Seaborg was also very much alive when seaborgium was named after/for him.
Yeah, and people didn't like that.
Eugene Parker saw the Parker Solar Probe being launched.
And Einstein was alive when Einsteinium's name was proposed (though not when it was confirmed)
@@not_enough_data_ Yes, it was a near thing. Yuri Oganessian is the new Seaborg!
wow. I looked because the title intrigued me: "element 120" is a science fiction book from 1977. Thanks for the explanations !
Provavelmente ele deve ser baseado na tentativa real de síntese do Elemento 120 (Umbinilium) realizada pelo grande Glenn Theodor Seaborg em 1972, a qual infelizmente não obteve êxito!
Ele tentou a seguinte reação:
Cf-249 + Cr-54 => Ubn-303 + n
The professor is truly ageless, he looks exactly the same 10+ years ago
He doesn't look much different from 40 years ago when I was a chem undergrad at Nottingham
i have been watching his videos since 2011. he is still the same!
@@jerryheselwood LOL!
@@Ben-kh2rh Whee!
But the tremor seems to be getting worse 😟
i think it's crazy that some people might have seen the professor growing up and may be one of the first peoplke to discover these new super heavy elements
3:21 - Scandium is not very useful for this kind of experiment exacttly because of its neutron number. The only stable isotope of scandium has 24 neutrons compared to the 28-30 for calcium, titanium, vanadium and chromium.
It depends on a lot of factors. Each isotope of an element carries with it a certain binding energy and certain configurations have less binding energy than other ones resulting in that the resulting combined nucleus needs to remove less energy with the neutrons that come flying out. Problem is some elements only have a single isotope
To answer some questions in the video: Scandium is not used because its stable isotope is of mass number 45, so having fewer neutrons than calcium 48; heavier isotopes of scandium are highly radioactive. Titanium 50 is stable but rare (like calcium 48 is for practical purposes); vanadium 51 is stable and so common that you don't need to isotope-separate it; chromium 54 is stable but rare. And you need for the projectile AND target to be as neutron-rich as you can get, because the superheavy elements need to be even more neutron-rich to get the longest alpha decay half life, and the collisions used to make them tend to throw off neutrons because those are more numerous than the protons, and therefore more easily knocked off despite the electrostatic repulsion trying to push the protons out.
Problem is that when you get enough neutrons to get the longest alpha decay half-life, then the nuclei rapidly undergo spontaneous fission. This is already a barrier to trying to make elements heavier than fermium by progressively adding neutrons as was done to make the transuranium elements up to fermium. The heaviest isotopes of fermium and nobelium undergo spontaneous fission in microseconds to milliseconds (except 1.5 seconds for fermium 259). So I suspect that the "Island of Stability" is going to turn out to be a mirage, just like the one we were supposed to have around element 114 (flerovium).
Yes you have carefully balanced the incoming energy so that the resultant Mass hasn't got so much eccess energy that extra neutrons flying off can stabilize it for a short while
I really enjoy the professor's enthusiasm for nuclear chemistry and the new elements. He hasn't lost his excitement for new developments in his field like many experts do as they get older.
I'm always happy to see the professor
I’ve always wanted to know more about how they make the crazy heavy manmade elements. Really cool video.
I'm retired but do so love these videos. Everything is explained so clearly. If life on this Earth were extended, I would pursue many additional degrees, and I believe Chemistry and Physics would be the first. Once the building blocks and their interactions are understood, so many other things would fall into place.
As an aside, I seem to recall Seaborg predicting the islands of stability (although others may have preceded, that's one that stuck with me) I wonder if anyone has theorized which Groups those islands might likely fall under?
Thank you.
Excellent video.
Suggestion for future video- I believe that several years ago a similar process was used to turn lead into gold, thus finally fulfilling the dream of centuries of alchemists. Problem was that it took many thousands of dollars of energy to make a few dollars of gold. Would love to hear Sir Professor flesh out the story.
I've wondered about that same thing. If the electricity were cheap or free, I wonder how viable it would be.
Not a few dollars of gold, not even a few cents. A smattering of atoms, not even enough to plat a dust grain.
and the gold was radioactive, if I remember right.
@@causaestmalleus4605 It only has one stable isotope, and that's even harder to make.
@@garethdean6382 Yep. You might be able to get there by hitting iridium with a helium nucleus, but im not sure that that is a favorable reaction, and iridium is even more rare than gold.
Also, while Au197 is observationally stable, it is predicted to actually decay, just with an extremely long half life.
I love chemistry so much, I’m convinced it’s why I was put on earth. Thank you so much for these videos, it’s so fascinating seeing every single element layed out in such great videos.
Thank you so much for this video. Please continue to make this kind of video of discussing lots of theories that seems basic .
10 years ago in a school project we calculated the suitable projectile speed to make element 119 with Lead projectile and Rubidium target, at 0.10415c. Was a fun excercise playing with Maple to solve the relativistic inelastic collision equation.
Something about using lead as the projectile seems weirdly appropriate. The same stuff as regular bullets are made from!
The island of stability is always just two elements further!
That is because Helium is far more stable than Hydrogen.
99% of nuclear physicists quit before making a stable isotope
And fusion is always five years away!
@@djcfrompt _"And fusion is always five years away!"_ Fusion will always be five years away as making a commercial fusion device for home use would be far too easy to turn into a device that could twice level any city on the planet.
There is already a device that when started will use standard tap water to extract hydrogen from and will produce enough power from 32oz of water to power ~100 homes of your closest neighbors for about 2 weeks on that 32oz of tap water. The only problem is the problem stated above. That device is also capable of twice leveling any city. 5 people on this planet know how to make one. All 5 have stated that they are going to take it to their grave.
@@nathanwoodruff9422 what is the name of this device?
9:21 We live in a very small window of time where we can say, "This tie predates ____ium."
I feel like you'd able to say that in the last 60 years or so
“Bradium” is perfect! 😂
Unless it's a noble gas, then it's "Bradeon", which sounds a bit too much like Radeon. Which AMD is gonna have a problem with.
The opposite is tachium.
Poliacovium?
@@Torby4096 Not very Pc.
I was genuinely mystified by the professor's comments about the word "pinkie" as that's what I've called it my whole life. On checking a few dictionaries it seems pinkie is the Scottish name for the little finger, and is also used in the US and Canada, but I can't believe it isn't also used in England and the rest of the UK. Or have I just gone through my whole life until now not noticing or realising that other people in the UK don't use that name at all?
But the rest of the video was also interesting and intriguing, thank you 😄😛
Do you watch a lot of U.S. tv and movies?
@@MushookieMan As much as anyone, I guess. Why?
Same here. As someone who was brought up in Scotland and lived here all my life, I assumed it was a trans-British word and am tickled to discover it isn’t. I can’t say I’ve noticed pinky/pinkie being referred to in North American film or tv - but then why would you if it’s a word you use yourself?
Weird, it's common in Australia and I never thought it wasn't elsewhere
The combination of Ti-50 and Cf-249, resulting in Ubn-295 or Ubn-296, does not result in a favorable combination, considering that these nuclides are above the main stability line for this element.
The mass of the isotopes with the longest half-lives must be in the vicinity of Ubn-313, Ubn-316 and Ubn-317. Those with mass 295 and 296 will disintegrate quickly.
The idea was to insert more neutrons into the reaction, or use heavier Titanium and/or Californium isotopes.
This channel and the other one involving astronomy are fantastic. Not a single bad presentation.
Since changing the "bullet" atom from Calcium to a heavier one is already a major challenge, is there a reason to not try with even heavier elements as bullets? For example Strontium (just below Calcium in the table)?
Especially when you’re hitting a barrier with Calcium, Titanium moves you just two elements further before hitting the same barrier. But it remains to be seen if the principles to go from Calcium to Titanium can be applied to incrementally heavier “bullets”.
You run into issues with the energy. The heavier a nucleus the higher energy it needs to overcome repulsion and fuse, but that higher energy can destroy your product. This is why 'silicon fusion' in stars process via alpha particles and not Si-Si- collisions. Getting strontium to work is an unsolved problem.
I remember listening to a guy talking at TRIUMF use the word Barnes, which is the cross section of capture for certain nuclear reactions. And it's an incredibly small area equivalent
Thank you for your videos! May I make a suggestion? Id love to see a video which is a sort of wrap-up of the Periodic Table. Like a 10-15-20? minute video that spends a moment on each element. Maybe the ficus would what would a student need for their exam? Just an idea!! Thank you. Lovely channel for many years!!!❤❤❤
They don't use scandium because its only stable isotope has a neutron excess of only three neutrons and you need a larger excess to get a product with enough neutrons to stay stable long enough to be detected. calcium 48 has an excess of eight neutrons, as does titanium 52. vanadium 51 only has an excess of five and chromium 60 of six, so titanium should be the way to go to get element 120, but I assume it doesn't work because we would have produced element 120 before now.
Elements with even Z are more stable due to pairing energy. It’s the same mechanism in nuclear physics for protons as in chemistry for electrons.
Then why is polonium so unstable while bismuth is almost stable? You'd think the last mostly-stable element to be even then.
@@ThePeterDislikeShowThe nucleus also has a shell structure and certain configurations are more or less stable than others ("magic numbers"). Also, sometimes certain decay modes are super-allowed, like in Sn-100, which massively decreases their half-life (cf. Superallowed Gamow-Teller Decay of the Doubly Magic Nucleus Sn-100).
I had to look up what you meant about the American vs British billion and trillion.
When I was a kid, I was taught a billion was a million millions. After coming to the USA, I felt a bit silly, as if I had been taught wrong since here a billion is one thousand millions.
I felt the same regarding the number of continents, how they do maths, and so on…….
I’ve learned to adapt overtime as I travel the world and get exposed to even more ways of thinking.
Screw element 120, find a way to provide the 110's with more neutrons so they can stick around for awhile.
Making higher number elements in certain ways would allow for those to decay into more stable versions of the other ones, and the advancements technology required for either goal helps with the other.
Maybe evaporate protons instead of neutrons
Exactly! I want to see some roentgenium jewelry!
@@bryaneckenrode351?? Then it’s not the same element 😭😭
@@bengoodwin2141 Nonsense.
I vote we name Element 120 "Boatymcboatfacium". The symbol, of course, would have to be "Bm".
It’s a fun idea but we all know ‘they’ would rename it sirdavidattenboroughium.
I would suggest "Masturbatium," to recognize the motivation of these chemists.
@@SeattlePioneer😅
I just love to hear you professor ❤❤
Can’t wait for another Bobby Broccoli video🎉
"For reasons that I, as a simple chemist, don't understand, making even-numbered elements is a bit easier than making odd-numbered elements."
He is joking here, I assume, since even as a chemist I'm sure he knows it has to do with electron shells. This is one reason it makes sense to learn physics before diving into chemistry, never understood why the other order is so common in schools.
Right on time with PBS space time!
Great to see a new video from the Prof. Loved it as always.
But is the audio not quite the usual quality?
Thanks for the video.
Part of me wonders what interesting properties these super heavy elements could have if you could some how, make them not decay as soon as they exist, and make enough of them to *do* something with them. Its fun to speculate i guess
I wish i had these videos growing up.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
Fascinating!
Poliakoffium, let’s go
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more
Seaborg also got a lifetime element name award
I’ve heard that we can make those elements but they are missing neutrons to make stable isotope. Because of this, we only make unstable isotope that have short lives.
I truly enjoy Sir Professor! Congrats!!!
Wow, this is humanity at its amazing best! 🙂
Hey Periodic Videos!! Can you make a video on element 124? You can talk about where it would be placed on the table and the GANIL experiments.
For anyone wondering why going for element 120 is "easier" than going for element 119.
1. Nuclei with an even number of protons AND an even number of neutrons tend to be more stable than
nuclei with an even number of protons OR an even number of neutrons which tend to be more stable than
nuclei with an odd number of protons AND an odd number of neutrons
2. Stable elements with and even number of protons have a stable isotope with the same number of neutrons as the next heavier element. Oftem the ligther elment can have to extra neutrons and still be stable and in some cases even 4 more e.g. Ca48 vs Sc45. (Ingoring insane long half live; Ca48 is radioactive but it's half live is more than one billion times the age of the universe)
This is true for radioactive elements too, to some extend. Even number elements tend have more stable isotops.
This can be seen on the nuclid chart.
This is a consequence of 1.
All nuclei of superheavy element we have produced so far have a large neutron deficit. The most stable isotopes need about 10 more neutrons according to our predictions, so extra neutrons are needed.
Why not just use even heavier nuclei than Ti50?
1. There are no combinations where both the traget and beam nuclei are (resanable) stable. Isotopes with a half life under one year are basicly unusable.
2. If the "bullet" nuclei are heavier it increases the chance to completly destroy the target nuclei and no fusion occurs.
Why is it not possible to ecject protons for the superheavy nuclei?
This seams resonable because these nuclei lack neutrons so ejecting protons should create nuclei wiht a better ration of protons to neutrons.
The problem: quantum tunneling (or the lack there of)
The superheavy nucleus is in a highly excited stat, it is energetically possible to release multiple protons or neutrons.
If an protons leaves the nucleus it needs to tunnel through the electric barrier. If the proton leaves the range of the strong force it would need a lot of energy because of the electric repulsion. If it does not have this energy the only why out is quantum tunneling, this happens very fast in the order of nanoseconds depending on the excition energy.
Neutrons however have no electric barrier because they have no charge. They INSTANTLY leave the nucleus; in the order of 10^-22 seconds this about the time need to cross a nuclei at ~10% the speed of light.
Because of this neutron virtually always leave first and take away the energy.
Most smiles are started by another smile.
the additional reason to pursue this research is the continue innovation on the engineering and hardware side.
I know even less about nuclear physics than the venerable professor, but I do know that for whatever reason, calcium-48 decays only by double beta decay. It is hindered by the higher energy of surrounding nuclei I guess, because 20 protons and 28 neutrons are both magic numbers. Double beta decay means two neutrons decaying into protons and electrons (and usually antineutrinos) simultaneously, making it extremely rare. (In fact, it is the rarest type of nuclear decay observed.) So even though the nuclide is extremely neutron-rich, it is still nearly observationally stable, and practically stable for all purposes, with a half life way longer than the age of the universe. That means it is also a primordial nuclide on earth and constitutes a meaningful percentage of natural calcium (a whopping 0.2%).
(Also, scandium is extremely expensive, for reasons I don't quite understand, so that's probably why other nearby elements are preferred over it.)
For the neutron ratio, heavier elements also need more neutrons to be stable against the electrostatic repulsion of the protons. While lighter elements usually are most stable around a 1:1 ratio, much heavier elements have an increasingly higher ratio; for example:
Neodynium, element 60, has the most common ratio of ~1.37 neutrons per proton
Mercury, element 80, has the most common ratio of 1.525 neutrons per proton
Uranium, element 92, has the most stable ratio of ~1.587 neutrons per proton
The problem is, with 2 lighter elements, the total ratio of neutrons to protons is often too low for the fusion product.
Calcium-48 has a ratio of 1.4 neutrons to protons, which is much closer to the average for heavier elements than other isotopes in that range.
Even then, we can see that, for example, the only isotope of Og produced has a ratio of ~1.49 neutrons to protons. Quite possibly a heavier isotope could be significantly more stable, but much more difficult to produce.
For example, take Moscovium, element 115, for which a number of isotopes have been produced. The first two (discovered in the same set of experiments) produced Mc-287 and Mc-288. Later discoveries of Mc-289 and Mc-290 have significantly longer half-lifes, with Mc-290 having a significantly longer half-life (650 ms) compared to the others (250 ms, 193 ms, 38 ms, 20 ms) which suggests that the most stable isotope could be significantly heavier.
I just love your videos.
"For reasons that I, as a simple chemist, don't understand..." LOL i love this guy
Do you think he saw Captain disillusion parody of him?
@@jonathanmain9079 Haha omg i hope so
Noetic aether theory is dope! Everyone should look into it!
I love this guy.
Trying to make these heavier atoms reminds me of how I was in high school. Most my relationships were hard to get into, then exploded and I was just left with a handful of isotopes.
C'est la vie.
I think that the reason why scandium hasn't been used is that it doesn't have any suitable isotopes. Its one stable isotope, Sc-45, would produce isotopes that are very, very low in neutrons (as opposed to the current methods, which produce isotopes that are just very low in neutrons).
We nuclear boys like even nuclei because the nuclear force is isoscalar, so each neutron and proton can pair up and make an iso singlet. The math is like spin up and spin down for electrons ….which is why it is called isospin. It’s just in quark flavor space, not real spin space, this is why the quarks are call up and down.
Well that clears it up 🤔
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Professor, did you ever read "Atomgewicht 500" by Hans Dominik? I think it would interest you. It's brilliant science-fiction from the 1920s, and it's uncanny how he predicted some of the discoveries that have been made only in the last two decades or so.
Glenn T. Seaborg got a year and a half being alive with an element named for him as well, so it's not just Yuri Oganessian
0:48 I think he is being a bit humble
How about two counter-rotating streams of neodymium (element 60) that head-on into one another?
:) ^_^ I love this stuff. Go pro may you keep on keeping on and may science prevail in keeping you healthy and well :)
The elements in the Island of stability interest me more.
I nominate element 120 to be called Professorium.
Bob Lazarium doesn't doesn't exist then? What a disappointment.
How many elements are there? and is it even possible we could ever find all of them?
We already have found all elements that are stable or have a long enough life to use them practical.
The "island of stability" might include elements that are stable for minutes, perhaps hours or days, but they will never be stable enough to create enough material that you can even really see these elements. This experiments to create superheavy elements are only for testing theories and they are a kind of flexing your abilities to create them, but there will never be a real practical use for this elements.
If this works for 119 and 120, wouldn’t we need to find a new method for 121 and beyond? Shouldn’t we stick with the x0 elements, like with the lower elements which used neon and calcium, wouldn’t Zinc work?
New periodic video!
The fact that he doesn't know what a trillion is but is also much much more learned than me cracks me up
The confusion probably originates in the fact that a billion in the UK used to be (and still is sometimes) a million million and a trillion a million million million, i.e. not a thousand million or a milllion million
You guys aren't allowed to have an element named after you because I'm very fond of ya and i don't want you to be dead.
"Trillion" - Long versus Short forms or scales -> this was sorted in the 1970s, at least for the UK.
Ref: Wikipedia says, "Originally, the United Kingdom used the long scale trillion. However, since 1974, official UK statistics have used the short scale. Since the 1950s, the short scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long scale definition still has some limited usage. ... American English has always used the short scale definition."
Quantum mechanically spoken even numbered atoms have nuclei with lower discrete energy levels than their uneven numbered “cousins”, hence they are ‘easier’ to create.
🎵"Like two atoms in a molecule, inseparably combined" 🎵 _-- Noah and the Whale_
It's very intriguing to me, that nature tolerates 'odd' elements. But making 'even' elements seems easier for humans.
Can't wait for the production of negative elements to start, now we've discovered neg helium.
wow and peace be upon you sir from me
Interesting my dear Watson
Thousand thousands is a million another thousand millions is a billion and a thousand billions is a trillion
Can we talk more about the island of stability!
Question: Couldn´t you let 3 or more atoms collide into one spot from 3 or more different angles instead of using one superheavy (here Californium) and one moderately weighing atom like Ca ? Common colliders are having only one toroid in a plane. One could use the 3rd space for angled planes of toroids as well.
Fourth reason: because you can / because it becomes there. 😊
I'm surprised at 7:16 he referenced confusion between long and short scales. I was under the impression that milliards, billiards, etc were deprecated terms.
I am not sure if my quick search is correct, but I found that even number of elements are more balanced, creating a more stable element. With the odd number of elements, you have an unbalanced level of electrons. Of course, there are other factors to consider, but that would be complicated to explain or understand, for myself.
One other feature not cited in this video is if we go beyond 120, such as 124 or 126, there is the opportunity to examine the g-shell... Does it exist, or is now fused with the F-shell or even d-shell.
Is the juice worth the squeeze though?
My problem with naming elements is that the new method is just to name them after a famous place or person.
Why not a chemical of physics reaction - oxygen is acid(oxy) forming(gen) - or some sort sort of characteristics - rubidium has a red line in its spectrum.
The Ti used to hold it made me think of actually using it for the actual atoms. You hit the Ti on the other side and make it hit the Pu or put the Pu in between two and vibrate them piezo-style or something else.
The Ca atoms not hitting the Pu made me think of quantum tunneling. Weird quantum effects are needed to fuse hydrogen in the sun so I have no idea how that might help.
So, would it be a decent idea to try to decay into something like 119? And other hard to reach goals via acceleration?
Imagine how upset perfectionists would be when elements 119 and 120 disrupt the shape of the Periodic Table 💀
The periodic table is recursive, so there's no way to disrupt the table. You could easily write the table out to 200, 300, 400, whatever arbitrary number you want. We may not know the pattern, but you can draw it out according to the most predicted pattern
Basically, whether we discover an element or not is totally irrelevant to the shape of the table
imagine the amount of textbooks you need to reprint
Yeah adding a new row, totally disrupts all of science
@@seeker296couldn't there be totally unknown new groups of elements?
That would be me, but it's exciting for me as well 😁
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of the imagination.
Exploring the chemical properties might give you another reason to skip 119. As any chemist knows, the Group I metals increase in reactivity as the atoms become larger.
Thus, lithium is a bit boring, sodium is far more interesting, potassium is pretty exciting and caesium is downright scary. I don't know if francium is sufficiently long-lived for people to have done much chemistry with it, but the trend suggests it should be even more reactive than caesium (in the which case, yikes!).
Element 119 would have to be more reactive than francium if the trend continues . . .
Error is discipline through which we advance.
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
It's utterly crazy how much effort it takes just to achieve 1 or 2 succeessful atoms of a new element.. The process is just absurd. I wonder if they could combine their methods With also using high strength magnetic fields, high pressure environments, high temperatures or a vacuum environment or cold temperatures.. maybe electrical impulses, plasma, high voltages in any sorta combination maybe any of these factors could improve the process in this field of science?