ELEMENT 112 DISCOVERED

Internet UFO Group Media Archive

From:ISCNI*Flash
Title:ELEMENT 112 DISCOVERED
Source:Reuter
Date:Feburary 22, 1996


BONN, Germany (Reuter) - Scientists at a German research institute have added

a new element to the Periodic Table -- number 112, a heavier, still unnamed

relative of zinc, cadmium and mercury.

A team of German, Russian, Slovakian and Finnish physicists detected a single

atom of the new metal on Feb. 9, the Society for Heavy Ion Research in

Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, announced.

They made it by bombarding lead, element number 82, with zinc, element number

30, until a pair of atoms fused as a new substance with as many protons as

the two together.

The new element is the latest in a string of successes for a team headed by

German Peter Armbruster, who were the first to create elements 107 to 111.

The new element is so difficult to produce that it is unlikely to serve any

purpose but research. But the way it decays offers proof of a theory about

how so-called "super-heavy" atoms behave.

The 30-year-old theory contends that atoms with 162 neutrons -- tiny neutral

particles in the heart of an atom -- are more strongly bound together than

their chemical neighbors.

"Proving the existence of element 112 provides important confirmation for

theoretic nucleus structure models," German Science Minister Juergen

Ruettgers said.

Armbruster, who has worked on new elements for 20 years, and his team plan to

press on. But the search will not continue forever.

"According to theory, element 114 should be especially stable," said an

institute spokesman. "There won't be an element 200 and there probably won't

even be an element 130."