New element added to Periodic Table

A new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said late Wednesday.

"The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt said in a statement.

The team first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei were fused to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, Latin for 112.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) confirmed the discovery of 112 by the team led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Helmholtz Center. IUPAC has asked for an official name for the element to be submitted.

Discovery? Doesn't that imply that the element was there prior to being discovered?

I love all things scientific, yet I find myself wondering--what's the point? Do we need another element? What for?

Sounds like a bunch of scientists having fun accelerating charged particles to inconceivable speeds in a tube towards a target instead of playing darts Friday nights, if you ask me.

John Jost, executive director of IUPAC in North Carolina, told Reuters that creating new elements helped researchers to understand how nuclear power plants and atomic bombs function.

Ah...there we go. I thought they already knew how a bomb works...

The atomic number 112 refers to the sum of the atomic numbers of zinc, which has 30, and lead, which has 82. Atomic numbers denote how many protons are found in the atom's nucleus.

Scientists at the Helmholtz Center have "discovered" six chemical elements, numbered 107-112, since 1981. The remaining five elements have already been recognized and named.

In 1925, scientists discovered the last naturally occurring element on the periodic table. Since then researchers have sought to create new, heavier elements. Then these are not discoveries...is it just me?

Proving the existence of atoms with such a high mass, the so-called superheavy elements, is a complex procedure because they exist for only tiny fractions of a second and then decay radioactively into other elements.

Will there be a practical application for a lab-concocted superheavy element that exists only fractions of a second? Sounds like a ticking bomb, if you ask me.

Sources: Reuters
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