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FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

Posted November 29, 2010 11:10 AM

From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now:

There are two ways to go about testing this, neither of which are practical. One requires the energy of dozens of Large Hadron Colliders. The other could yield a cauldron-full of flaming plutonium. Both, however, would probably create carbon monoxide and a pile of rust and salts rather than a cool Frankenstein element. If you toss single atoms of each element into a box, they won't form a super-molecule containing one of everything, explains Mark Tuckerman, a theoretical chemist at New York University. Atoms consist of a nucleus of neutrons and protons with a set number of electrons zooming around them. Molecules form when atoms' electron orbitals overlap and effectively hold the atoms together. What you get when you mix all your atoms, Tuckerman says, will be influenced by what's close to what.

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#1

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/29/2010 11:09 PM

you get shrodingers cat in box, meaning you may as well enjoy the show as you will have no effing idea what you will get.

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#2

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/29/2010 11:26 PM

Isn't that what happens when a neutron star explodes:all elements are formed from a neutron pool?Perhaps the process would be reversed.

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#3

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/30/2010 7:12 AM

I did this when I was a kid with my 140-piece chemistry kit in a 600 ml beaker. I had to get the radioactive isotopes by scraping the material off the hands of my watch.

All you get is this viscus primordial brown soup with curds.

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#4
In reply to #3

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/30/2010 2:30 PM

"All you get is this viscus primordial brown soup with curds."

Yeah, but what did yours taste like? My resulting 'Erlenmeyer Surprise' was so smelly I could only get one of my brothers to try it.

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#5

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/30/2010 6:57 PM

Damn! Try again!!

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#6

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/30/2010 7:05 PM

Don't let them come in contact. Just put them into the available slots in your "Periodic Collector's Notebook (like the penny collector's notebooks you might have seen) and then you'll be able to go on "Antiques Roadshow" and find what a valuable collection you indeed have.

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#7

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

11/30/2010 10:45 PM

You get a crumpled up page in your chemistry book.

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#8

Re: FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

12/01/2010 4:34 PM

Can anything happen with exact simultaneousness? Holy Cow! I thought I made that word up!

This is gonna be good.

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