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