Superheavy Element 114's Synthesis Confirmed, Dashes Hopes of "Island of Stability"
Long hoped to represent the point where superheavy elements don't immediately decay, Ununquadium turns out to be not so stable after all More than 10 years after Russian scientists first claimed to create atoms of Ununquadium, the unstable element in position 114 on the periodic table, scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory have confirmed their own element 114 sample. Unfortunately, the 114 atoms quickly decayed, dashing years of hope that element 114 occupied the long sought "island of stability" where super-heavy elements could exist in large quantities for long periods of time. To clarify, this experiment does not represent the naming of the element, a process that can take over a decade, or the discovery of the element, which occurred at the Dubna lab in Russia, ten years ago. Instead, this experiment does manage to overturn years of nuclear physics, and send scientists back to the...