The Noble Gas Oganesson (Og)

"Heavy, Man." _{- Anonymous poster #0}

They've added quite a number of elements since I took chemistry in school. Alas, elements that disappear as soon as they are made are of academic interest only and don't have any practical use, AFAIK. Maybe one day, we'll reach the "Island of Stability" and have something that will stick around for awhile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability

When I think of these elements that degrade quickly, I often think of muon decay. Muons can be detected at the Earth's surface even though their mean lifetime is two microseconds. The reason is because they are moving at relativistic speeds and time slows down in their reference frame. I always think, way off in our future, maybe we could build things out of these short-lived elements, or use them as catalysts, as long as they are moving fast enough. Or perhaps we could find a way to manipulate their mean lifetime somehow exploiting the uncertainty principle. I know it's a bit pie in the sky, but why not?

Funny you mention muons and catalysts...

"Muon-catalyzed fusion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muon-catalyzed fusion (μCF) is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at temperatures significantly lower than the temperatures required for thermonuclear fusion, even at room temperature or lower. It is one of the few known ways of catalyzing nuclear fusion reactions.

Muons are unstable subatomic particles. They are similar to electrons, but are about 207 times more massive. If a muon replaces one of the electrons in a hydrogen molecule, the nuclei are consequently drawn 196^[1][2] times closer than in a normal molecule, due to the reduced mass being 196 times the mass of an electron. When the nuclei are this close together, the probability of nuclear fusion is greatly increased, to the point where a significant number of fusion events can happen at room temperature.

Current techniques for creating large numbers of muons require large amounts of energy, larger than the amounts produced by the catalyzed nuclear fusion reactions. This prevents it from becoming a practical power source. Moreover, each muon has about a 1% chance of "sticking" to the alpha particle produced by the nuclear fusion of a deuteron with a triton, removing the "stuck" muon from the catalytic cycle, meaning that each muon can only catalyze at most a few hundred deuterium tritium nuclear fusion reactions. So, these two factors, of muons being too expensive to make and then sticking too easily to alpha particles, limit muon-catalyzed fusion to a laboratory curiosity. To create useful room-temperature muon-catalyzed fusion, reactors would need a cheaper, more efficient muon source and/or a way for each individual muon to catalyze many more fusion reactions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

As for variation in the decay rates, there was some indication awhile back that solar neutrinos had some effect, but that has since been attributed to the effect of temperature, humidity, and air pressure on the sensors.

https://phys.org/news/2014-10-textbook-knowledge-reconfirmed-radioactive-substances.html

If the "island of stability" actually exists then those superheavy elements might be the seeds to make a black hole. At least a black hole that was not primordial.

Looks like the periodic table continues to grow.

There aren't that many openings left in the element chart...

I know that Oganesson resides in the periodic column of the other noble gasses but with a half life of just 690 microseconds this has never been observed as a gas.

I would say that they don't know enough to be able to say what state of matter it is in.

Plural of gas is spelled "gases", just so you know.

Maybe a material scientist or theoretical chemist can answer this for me. I've occasionally wonder if heavier elements in the CAS group VIIIA (Noble gases) would possibly become a liquid at STP due to the higher molecular mass and therefore inertia of the element. Maybe a heavier and possibly more stable isotope of Oganesson could be found that might demonstrate if this does retain a gaseous state at STD before nuclear decay takes its toll.

How is it possible that it was over 15 years after it was first synthesized, that I first heard of it (just now)?

It would be interesting to know how they can study the electron shell structure of a gas where only a few atoms exist at any one time.

If you were to join a club, but were expelled in 1ms, would you still consider yourself one of the club?

Depends on whether I need it for my resume or not.

These higher MW elements are curiosities only. They all have relatively short half-lives, and they cost a considerable amount of money to even glimpse. I think we should curtail research in this area and focus more on composites with much more common elements.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/422345/glass-thats-stronger-than-steel/

https://phys.org/news/2018-01-yields-super-strong-aluminum-alloy.html