Hi all,
I was in a geography class yesterday and the prof was mentioning about how, over time, heavier elements end up towards the earth's core while lighter elements, such as silicas, end up closer to the crust. That got me thinking. Could their be any super heavy metals or other materials very deep in the mantle or core that we haven't found yet? Morever, it seems like everytime scientists discover some new element with a huge Atomic Mass number it is unstable and can only exist for a fraction of a second in normal conditions. I haven't taken chemistry or physics for several years, so I am a little fuzzy on whether or not it is possible to predict whether a certain theoretical element would be stable. Is there any reason that one cannot create super dense elements that have many more protons than the currently discovered elements on the periodic chart? Can current particle accelerators accomplish this?
I was in a geography class yesterday and the prof was mentioning about how, over time, heavier elements end up towards the earth's core while lighter elements, such as silicas, end up closer to the crust. That got me thinking. Could their be any super heavy metals or other materials very deep in the mantle or core that we haven't found yet? Morever, it seems like everytime scientists discover some new element with a huge Atomic Mass number it is unstable and can only exist for a fraction of a second in normal conditions. I haven't taken chemistry or physics for several years, so I am a little fuzzy on whether or not it is possible to predict whether a certain theoretical element would be stable. Is there any reason that one cannot create super dense elements that have many more protons than the currently discovered elements on the periodic chart? Can current particle accelerators accomplish this?