Einsteinium is an ideal target for making super heavy elements with atomic numbers of 119 and beyond
So there's another chance to have Lemmium at last!
Nearly 70 years after America made einsteinium in its first full-scale thermo-nuke experiment, mystery element yields secrets of its chemistry
Chemists have measured a fundamental chemical property of einsteinium, a mysterious and radioactive element that was discovered in the debris of America's first full-scale thermonuclear device test – the Ivy Mike shot in 1952. Einsteinium (Es) has an atomic number of 99 and is buried at the bottom of the periodic table, where …
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 5th February 2021 17:01 GMT Uncle Slacky
Re: Physics?
Which probably explains the Wikipedia Philosophy Game/Loop:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy
"Clicking on the first link in the main text of a Wikipedia article, and then repeating the process for subsequent articles, usually leads to the Philosophy article. In February 2016, this was true for 97% of all articles in Wikipedia..."
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 5th February 2021 10:14 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: “It was discovered by accident in the debris in the first hydrogen bomb”
That's an interesting fact, until I googled it, I was convinced that napalm didn't make its "debut" until a decade later in Vietnam, and I was about to post asking whether you meant Vietnam, not Korea.
Just goes to show, "facts not opinions" - glad I checked before making a total tit of myself...
-
Friday 5th February 2021 18:34 GMT Jaybus
Re: “It was discovered by accident in the debris in the first hydrogen bomb”
Napalm was invented by Harvard organic chemist Julius Fieser in 1942. It was used in the US M2 flamethrower, the M-69 incendiary, and the E-46 cluster bomb (which consisted of 38 M-69s). It was used in the firebombing of more than 60 Japanese cities between March and August 1945.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 19:07 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: Open YouTube
Er, not really. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron) The neutron contains three quarks and one of them can decay into a different kind of quark and produce a W- boson which then decays into an electron and an electron neutrino. Takes about a quarter of an hour if there's nothing else about, so there's probably a cup of tea involved, as well.
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 20:44 GMT Eclectic Man
Re: Open YouTube
My cousin who is a physicist is or was engaged in an experiment to determine just how far out of the Neutron the electron sticks. Or at least that is how he described it to me. Turns out the electron is really close in (they could not detect it with their experiment). I don't understand it, but then:
As Feynman said: "Anyone who says they understand quantum mechanics does not understand quantum mechanics."
On the other hand, a quarter of an hour is enough time for my pot of Earl Grey to have brewed and cooled to a nicely drinkable temperature. :o)
-
Friday 5th February 2021 17:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Open YouTube
Surely you must be joking Mr Feyman.
QM works the way solving an equation works. You fill in the values you know, until you can solve for the remaining unknowns.
Now describe that as if the equation was the underlying system: "measuring properties, sets the properties and narrows the possible values for the the remaining unknowns, before you measure them they've unknown in many possible states not in a single known state".
Since the equation models matter at the subatomic level correctly, so that must be correct via mathematical and statistical proofs against observation. The equation MUST BE the model.
Except it doesn't work. You keep finding repeating patterns which you label with various terms, "quantum teleportation", "entanglement", etc. that don't fit the model and hypothesizing magical solutions where the properties are being transferred from one particle to other, or one photon to another.
So its not a description of the underlying mechanism, its an approximation model that approximately works most of the time except when it doesn't.
QM in a nutshell.
A fitted mathematical model to an unknown system, described as if the mathematical model *was* the system.
-
-
Friday 5th February 2021 04:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Open YouTube
Changing "becomes" to "decays" doesn't really fix the problem with the vagueness of understanding of the mechanism of it.
It's not 'neutron to energy to anything', because properties specific to the neutron result in properties in the end particles, so that energy intermediate would have to somehow carry an imprint of that data between the two.
It's not that the neutron contains a proton + electron neutrino, there's no fixed unevenness to the charge in a neutron to support that.
This is supposed to be a science right? You supposed to go look in the boxes marked "don't look, here be monsters".
-
-
Friday 5th February 2021 10:32 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: Open YouTube
A neutron should not be thought of as a sock containing two pool balls. It doesn't contain a proton any more than a photon contains an electron and positron.
The main problem with the physics of Very Small Things™ is that they do not have precise analogues in our world of Very Large Things™, so whilst we think of particles like little balls, and waves like ripples on a pond, these aren't actually very good analogues for the way subatomic entities work at all - they exhibit some properties of each, sometimes at the same time.
For instance, in experiments firing electrons at a double-slit, they interfere with each other like waves, and produce a pattern of high and low density on the other side of the slits. We generally think of electrons as particles, but in this case, they are exhibiting wave-like behaviour. They also do this, if you fire them at the two slits one electron at a time, with an individual electron interfering with itself, and the pattern made up by a series of electrons fired individually is the same as that made by sending a whole load at the same time.
Many subatomic particles also have other properties that don't really have any analogue in the macroscopic world, so once we get past charge, we start talking about things like "spin" then start running out of appropriate words and talk about "strangeness", "charm" and "up" and "down" as properties that avoid breaking the Pauli exclusion principle (which very crudely put, says you can't have two of the same thing in the same place at the same time).
So yeah, not pool balls in a sock.
A neutron actually "becomes" a proton through the decay of one of its constituent quarks (a down quark) into a different type of quark (an up quark). In the process, emitting a W- boson, which almost immediately decays into an electron, and an electron neutrino.
So, if we are to stick with the very simplistic view of a neutron being composed of other particles, which we have already discussed, then the neutron actually also *contains* an electron neutrino.
-
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 15:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Open YouTube
Might be a bit long for YouTube - from the CRC Handbook:
"About 3 ug of Einsteinium has been produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratories by irradiating for several years kg quantiies of Pu-239 in a reactor to produce Pu-242 ... loaded into target rods for an initial 1-year irradiation at the AEC's Savannah River Plant followed by (4 months) irradiation in a High Flux Isotopic Reactor... removed for chemical separation of the einsteinium from californium"
All that and it only lasts 270 days!
I suspect Einsteinium's most significant use will be in making up word puzzles in Chemistry Department alumni magazines.
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 16:09 GMT Anonymous Custard
Re: Open YouTube
I suspect Einsteinium's most significant use will be in making up word puzzles in Chemistry Department alumni magazines.
It also regularly seems to pop up on Pointless, as do several of its other actinide siblings.
Used to get good low scores, but even J Random Punter now seems to have heard of it and says it...
-
-
-
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 15:06 GMT TDog
Re: The dream of stable trans-uranics
It is actually a well attested fact that alicorn is the sole known source of stable trans-uranics. Sadly the current dearth of unicorns (last reported in the middle ages) has caused formal validation of the above to be significantly delayed. As soon as a new source of unicorns is found then multiple stable trans-uranics will be available for scientific identification and evaluation.
Some hypothesise that the the role of alicorn in the philosopher's stone is that of a so called 'nuclear catalyst'. We shall see.
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 15:32 GMT Tom 7
Re: The dream of stable trans-uranics
There are a few astronomers who think they may have found some in a star somewhere where there are some unknown absorption/transmission lines but I do wonder what use the stuff might have and what the definition of 'stable' is. After all H, He and LI are quite stable but Castle Bravo proves we can modify the definition of stable. I wonder how stable a box of transuranics might actually be if hit by a random cosmic ray at just the right spot.
-
Friday 5th February 2021 08:39 GMT Big_Boomer
Re: The dream of stable trans-uranics
If they can get enough Neutrons to stick to a Flerovium nucleus they could create the theoretically stable Fl²⁹⁸ or one of the many variants thought to be possible in the "Island of Stability". With the use of terms such as "Magic Numbers" it's no wonder we are discussing Unicorns, Alicorns and why not Pegacorns? I attribute the lack of Unicorn/Alicorn/Pegacorn sightings to reduced consumption of Psilocybin mushrooms in our daily diet. Icon because it's the closest I can get to "Spaced out dude!". :-)
-
-
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 16:41 GMT A. Coatsworth
“You cannot control the transmutation process,” Carter said
That is LOUSY alchemy. Going on that route, they will end up ceating an abomination against God, and probably losing some body parts in the process...
On a serious note, I love stuff like this. -"We found this cool thing about a rare element" -ok, what benefit can we get from it?" -*shrugs*
They are doing sicence for the hell of it (or rather, simply to learn more about the world), not to get a quick return of investment.
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 17:06 GMT amanfromMars 1
Whenever NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT is Loosed in the Field, Prepare for Almighty Fireworks
Carter believes it may have magnetic properties, which could lead to new types of materials.
Are magnetic properties different from or similar to being attractive to elements?
And with specific regard as to whether it could help chemists or physicists create elements yet to be discovered, there's always the renegade rogue option to consider, cloaked in SMARTR colours and flying the standards of a Merlin the Magician and Meta Data Base Physician ..... the Virtual Grand Masters and Mistresses, AI Wizards and Witches.
-
Tuesday 9th February 2021 11:09 GMT Loyal Commenter
The title is too long.
When physicists and chemists talk about "magnetic properties" they don't mean magnetic in the every-day sense where a big lump of magnetised iron can pick up iron filings (this is known as ferromagnetism and is a bulk property caused by making atoms in a solid align). They are talking about things known as diamagnetism and paramagnetism. Diamagnetism is a property exhibited by all elements, and is a (usually very) weak force that pushes against a magnetic field. Paramagnetism is more interesting, and exhibits itself as an attractive force towards a magnetic field. This is due to the (temporary) alignment of unpaired electrons. I'm going from memory here, as the last time I had to study this sort of thing was the best part of a quarter of a century ago.
-
-
Thursday 4th February 2021 22:02 GMT Werner Heisenberg
A possible application for Es-253
From wiki:
> The high radioactivity of einsteinium-253 produces a visible glow and rapidly damages its crystalline metal lattice, with released heat of about 1000 watts per gram.
Sounds like it would make a very effective portable heater. It wouldn't last very long, but hey - sitting in front of it, neither would I!
Pic of the manufacturing process.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
