# The heaviest element **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2002, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515 "2002-03-15T20:38:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@The\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lord)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2002, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/1 "2002-03-15T20:38:35Z")
As you probably have heard, scientists are creating new chemical elements. What I want to know which is the heaviest and/or heaviest. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2002, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/2 "2002-03-15T20:51:23Z")
[Ununquadium (114)](http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Uuq/key.html) is the heaviest known element at present (289 amu). Experiments at Berkeley in 1999 claimed to have created 116 and 118, but the results were retracted because they could not be independently confirmed. ---
**Author:** ![scratch1300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@scratch1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch1300)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2002, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/3 "2002-03-15T21:31:34Z")
I’ve read somewhere that osmium is the _densest_ element, so, say, a cubic foot of it would weigh more than the same volume of lead, gold, etc., if that’s what you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/4 "2002-03-16T02:10:01Z")
Osmium, with a density of 22.61 g/cm[sup]3[/sup], is indeed the densest element. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/5 "2002-03-16T12:53:39Z")
There is another sort of periodic table relating not to electrons but to the numbers of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. These numbers are plotted on the X and Y axes. In this you can see islands of stability as you proceed out along a diagonal line - that is, the elongated point cloud is clumpy. Some believe there is an isolated island of stability way out there, and thus there could be stable atoms with much higher mass than we have reached yet. But how to get there? ---
**Author:** ![cvandy3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cvandy3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cvandy3)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/6 "2002-03-16T15:33:28Z")
what ever happened to lead? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/7 "2002-03-16T15:43:15Z")
Lead is only half as dense as Osmium. Still, if you want a dense element in industrial quantities, lead is often a good choice. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/8 "2002-03-16T15:46:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cvandy3 \* > \*\*what ever happened to lead? \*\* With a density of only 11.34 g/cm[sup]3[/sup], lead isn’t all that dense. ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2002, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/9 "2002-03-16T23:54:41Z")
The Periodic Table as shown to high school students is hardly the only configuration out there, there are a number that are organized for around different concepts. Check the Encyclopaedia Britannica for a sampling and go the the web sites they recommend. [http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/periodic.html](http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/periodic.html) showing at least six neato variations. The densest element known to science is Administratium [http://rs2.ch.liv.ac.uk/~dlc/Administratium.html](http://rs2.ch.liv.ac.uk/~dlc/Administratium.html) ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2002, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/10 "2002-03-17T03:05:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by **Napier** > There is another sort of periodic table relating not to electrons but to the numbers of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. These numbers are plotted on the X and Y axes. In this you can see islands of stability as you proceed out along a diagonal line - that is, the elongated point cloud is clumpy. Some believe there is an isolated island of stability way out there, and thus there could be stable atoms with much higher mass than we have reached yet. But how to get there? Okay, now I’m really interested. I’m no physicist, so I’m confused. I thought that larger atoms got progressively more unstable because the mutual repulsion of the charges on the protons began to overcome the nuclear binding force. I can understand that the trend might be nonlinear with atomic weight, but I can’t understand how a really really super big atom could be stable. What else is going on that I missed? “But how to get there?” - How about this? We squeeze about 14 plutonium atoms together, and… Never mind. I admitted that I wasn’t a physicist, right? ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-heaviest-element/98515/11 "2002-03-17T21:56:17Z")
Exgineer, generally it’s true that bigger nuclei are harder to hold together. But there are other things going on as well. For one example, there are plenty of light atoms that fly apart. Remember “carbon dating”? It watches how thoroughly the less stable Carbon atoms have blown themselves up. Meanwhile much larger atoms can last orders of magnitude longer. For another example, the elements that have odd numbers of protons in their nuclei are more common in the universe than the elements that have even numbers. Remember that elements go trading electrons around frequently - it’s the number of protons that is really characteristic of an element. So there are clearly things other than small size that favor some numbers of protons over other numbers. Sorry I don’t know much about why these things are. If you are unbearably interested I could probably dig some things up…