General science thread

Quote: odiousgambit

Anybody who knows anything about physics, thus naturally accepting only one definition for 'element', knows this is basically impossible, on the order of 18 YOs rolled in a row anyway

I don't know a lot about physics so I would appreciate an explanation. I still don't even know which elements have atomic weights of 43, 61, and 75.

Quote: DRich

I don't know a lot about physics so I would appreciate an explanation. I still don't even know which elements have atomic weights of 43, 61, and 75.

Sum of protons and neutrons.

The periodic table lists elements by atomic number, the number of protons in the nucleus, and has no "elements" that are unknown up to #118, so to be composed of something "outside the periodic table" for this asteroid is ridiculous

barely within the realm of possibility, just to make an argument, would be, say, #119 is discovered and to the complete astonishment of the world of physics, it turns out to have a half life long enough to perpetuate in an object in space. We know of those beyond Uranium only due to experiments that create some that do not last ... "man-made". Also, just to make an argument, there is a theory that an isotope of a very heavy element, that just hasn't been discovered, this isotope [not element], that actually does have some stability, with half life measured in days, maybe ... it'd be astonishing for it to be years of half life as would be necessary for an asteroid

for the less ridiculous "elements not yet seen on Earth", which might mean elements not thought to exist in nature in any quantity, I can't believe physicists are "going there" and I refuse to read an article from some outfit that indulges in clickbait

>>>

what is the last stable element in the periodic table?

Quote:

Uranium, with an atomic number of 92, is the last element stable enough to occur naturally on Earth. Every element beyond it has a nucleus that falls apart quickly, and their half-lives—the time it takes for half of the material to decay—can be minutes, seconds or even split seconds

Quote:

Oganesson is not only the “last" element on the periodic table, it is the heaviest in terms of atomic weight. It's atomic number is 118. It is a man-made element. It is a highly radioactive element with a half life of less than a second

I couldn't stand it anymore so I found the article

Quote:

Elements beyond the periodic table have been modeled, with physicists predicting their properties. [and] elements in the ... theoretical island of nuclear stability near Z = 164 ... allow us to hypothesize that if superheavy elements are sufficiently stable, they could exist in the cores of dense asteroids like [this asteroid]

emphasis mine

Z means atomic number

the island of nuclear stability I've seen mentioned before ... in science fiction! However it is a real theory held by some, that one of these heavy atoms in some isotope defies all the other such that exist for less than a second etc and actually have long half-lifes

https://www.iflscience.com/asteroid-33-polyhymnia-may-contain-elements-outside-the-periodic-table-72775

island of stability, wikipedia


The expected location of the island of stability around Z = 112 (copernicium) is circled [apparently theorized as long lasting? havent read this yet]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability

maybe I have to take it back

however, I'm not sure the comparison to 18 YOs in a row is all that wrong

Quote: odiousgambit

"Donald Trump" is the #1 entry in English Gematria for Polyhymnia.

Also interesting, Baron Trump is #4.

Scroll down to the English section:

https://www.gematrix.org/?word=Polyhymnia


Mine is located on Algol.

I think the scientists are wrong on this one, but it was interesting reading about it.

Quote: odiousgambit

maybe I have to take it back

however, I'm not sure the comparison to 18 YOs in a row is all that wrong

18 YOs has legacy status. At least on the little world of these two forums.

Where I'd seen 'island of stability' before was a claim that alien crafts visiting our solar system from afar use an element from this island to power their craft, shooting a neutron into such an atom to split it and release energy that somehow is more effective and allows warp speed engines, to use a Star Trek phrase

I guess the island of stability theory comes about from physicists studying what makes an atom unstable, basically concluding the lack of balance between protons and neutrons is what makes the nucleus decay ... that there is a perfect proportion that stabilizes. Thus I guess it is not totally crazy to think objects made from this island could be out there, not much more unstable than uranium which we know can exist for billions of years. And every last bit of it likely to be fissable and phenomenal source of nuclear fuel

But I don't see how you make the leap to warp speed engines

Quote: odiousgambit

Where I'd seen 'island of stability' before was a claim that alien crafts visiting our solar system from afar use an element from this island to power their craft, shooting a neutron into such an atom to split it and release energy that somehow is more effective and allows warp speed engines, to use a Star Trek phrase

I guess the island of stability theory comes about from physicists studying what makes an atom unstable, basically concluding the lack of balance between protons and neutrons is what makes the nucleus decay ... that there is a perfect proportion that stabilizes. Thus I guess it is not totally crazy to think objects made from this island could be out there, not much more unstable than uranium which we know can exist for billions of years. And every last bit of it likely to be fissable and phenomenal source of nuclear fuel

But I don't see how you make the leap to warp speed engines

The leap to warp speed engines isn't too big, if one smokes enough of the good stuff.

Quote:

The radiologists examined 461,818 women across 12 breast cancer screening sites in Germany between July 2021 and February 2023, and for each person could choose whether or not to use AI. This resulted in 260,739 being checked by Al plus a radiologist, with the remaining 201,079 women checked by a radiologist alone.
Those who elected to use AI

successfully detected breast cancer at a rate of 6.7 instances in every 1000 scans - 17.6 per cent higher than the 5.7 per 1000 scans among those who chose not to use AI.
Similarly, when women underwent biopsies following a suspected detection of cancer,
those who were diagnosed with Al were 64.5 per cent likely to have a biopsy where cancerous cells were found, compared with 59.2 per cent of the women where AI wasn't used (Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/

Ai may kill us all eventually, but it may save more people’s lives so it can kill more of us.