• Question: are there more elements that do not appear on the periodic table?

    Asked by christopherclavey to Akram, David, Gill, Jack, laurenceharwood on 19 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by charlotteyeoell.
    • Photo: Laurence Harwood

      Laurence Harwood answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      So far we are at element 111 so I bet the latest ones aren’t on the periodic table in your school. Currently they are getting less and less stable so thatthe last few have only been detected by their decomposition products but it is though that if scientists can get to the next electron shell, they may start to get less unstable so we may be able to keep going for while.

    • Photo: Akram Alomainy

      Akram Alomainy answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I believe there are and I bet we will find more although Chemistry is not my field 🙂

    • Photo: Jack Snape

      Jack Snape answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      We can only find bigger ones now… and we can only make them ourselves, not discover them naturally. Once elements get over a certain size, they become unstable, like Laurence has said. So we might be able to make new ones they would only exist for a very short time – like a huge tower of cards! 🙂

    • Photo: Gill Menzies

      Gill Menzies answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      Some succinct answers from my colleagues here – I’m learning new stuff all the time too!!

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