June 12th, 2009, 11:02 am
QuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaIs element 112 really an element in the chemical sense of the word? Back in the good old days when chemists were discovering and purifying macroscopic quantities of elements, they could test and analyze the chemical properties of their discoveries. They could empirically determine it's melting point, boiling point, oxidation states, and the properties of various oxides, sulfides, etc.. Now, it physicists that synthesize transient femtoscopic quantities in particle accelerators and declare discovery.And if proton count is all that matters, then aren't all chemical elements already discovered in the sense that we can imagine their existence and accurately predict where they might lie on an extended periodic table?Agreed - although there will come a point where the proton / neutron mixture becomes unstable at a certain size. I suppose to extrapolate the largest element is a neutron star....