Yes I have heard of the predicted “island of stability,” but, of course, it is only stability relative to the elements leading up to it. The elements there will still be extremely short lived. Now, tell me what the practical or scientific significance of actually synthesizing any of them might be? What ramifications is it likely to have for the rest of science? Precious few, so far as I can see.
Enh, discover for discovery’s sake isn’t a bad thing. Labelling it, same. It just creates a structure, which I assume will forever be changing, within which to experiment.
There is an interesting anecdote in the aforementioned Disappearing Spoon about aluminum vs. aluminium. Apparently the pronunciation was changed in the US to make it sound more like platinum, because before an economical method for smelting aluminum was developed, it was scarce and was being marketed as a luxury metal.
Faraday said this to somebody who asked your question about a foolish and obscure thing he was experimenting with – electricity. It’s hard to know, is the problem, and our species has thrived by trying stuff,
It would definitely be of value to be able to synthesize elements up through the proposed island of stability, enough to observe their properties. It would either confirm the theory about this island, or refute it. Either would be very important for nuclear physicists.
As I recall Helium was discovered in the optical absorption lines in the Sun’s visible spectrum before it was isolated on Earth. Naming an element discovered that way as “Sun Metal”, from Helios & ium, is not so crazy. For consistency with the other Noble Gasses Helium should be renamed Helion. But who’s going to change all the textbooks? Some hellion, I suppose …
Several metallic elements were common enough in ancient times to have, and keep, their common names: iron, cobalt, copper, silver, gold, zinc, mercury. I’d have to look up how Tungsten ended up with a non “ium” name, but work calls.
Tungsten is a great example, because it has an alternate name, Wolfram, wehich is even weirder. It’s the German name, for the metal, as well, and it explains the element’s abbreviation, W.
Yes, and if it does exist, being able to measure just how stable they are or aren’t would help us refine our picture of nuclear structure and nuclear binding forces.
Not to mention being able to measure the physical characteristics (ie density, color, binding to other elements) if we make enough. Still on the ‘what good is a newborn baby’ level in that we can’t come up with specific practical benefits, but I figure that enough physics ‘newborn babies’ have grown up to do really great things that we can give these ones some slack.
I think it’s cool the way humans work. We like square, symmetrical things. We put together the periodic table but the existing elements left it lopsided. So we just started making the missing stuff to complete our table.
(I know there are other reasons, but I like that one. Go Scientists!)
One could have asked at the time “What good are these predicted elements?” Gallium is used in compound semiconductors for the lasers in CD/DVD/Blu Ray players, for LED lights, and for the lasers used in fiberoptic communications all over rhe world.