Beyond the Periodic Table

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You interact with about two-thirds of the elements of the periodic table every day. Some, like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, make up our bodies and the air we breathe. Yet there is also a class of elements so unstable they can only be made in a lab. These superheavy elements are the purview of a small group stretching the boundaries of chemistry. Can they extend the periodic table beyond the 118 in it now? Find out scientists are using particle accelerators to create element 120 and why they’ve skipped over element 119. Plus, if an element exists for only a fraction of a second in the lab, can we still say that counts as existing? Guests: Mark Miodownik – professor of materials and society at the University of College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.” Kit Chapman – Science historian at Falmouth University, author of “Superheavy; Making and Breaking the Periodic Table.” Jennifer Pore – Research Scientist of Heavy Elements at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:01.0	For every branch of science, there is usually an idea so fundamental, so revolutionary, that it reorganizes the way we think about things.
1:04.0	In chemistry, that idea is the periodic table, the simple yet ingenious way in which we organize elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon.
1:12.6	And for chemists, it is our big icon. And since this was invented 150 years ago by Dimitriamendalev,
1:19.6	it has absolutely continued to evolve.
1:22.6	The periodic table has evolved, in large part, due to scientists drive to discover new elements.
1:29.3	That search has moved from discovery in nature to the lab, where scientists create elements with funny names like rungenium and livermoryum.
1:37.3	These things do not exist naturally on Earth, nor do we even understand how they would be made in the universe, you know, what types of
1:48.0	stars would need to be made to produce these elements.
1:51.0	These unstable elements, which are glimpsed for mere fractions of a second before they disintegrate,
1:57.0	raise as many questions as they provide answers about the building blocks of matter.
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