The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.
The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.But the strong nuclear force operates over extremely short distances. If you keep adding protons to the nucleus, eventually it becomes too large to be bound by the strong force and comes unglued easily. This is why larger elements tend to have shorter lifetimes, breaking quickly into smaller pieces. As Phil Blakeman points out, there may be islands of stability in some heavier elements, but this is a relative thing. It might mean that the element has a half life of a microsecond instead of a few nanoseconds.
The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.But the strong nuclear force operates over extremely short distances. If you keep adding protons to the nucleus, eventually it becomes too large to be bound by the strong force and comes unglued easily. This is why larger elements tend to have shorter lifetimes, breaking quickly into smaller pieces. As Phil Blakeman points out, there may be islands of stability in some heavier elements, but this is a relative thing. It might mean that the element has a half life of a microsecond instead of a few nanoseconds.So it is highly unlikely that there are any more undiscovered elements with lifetimes even approaching one second.
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The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.
The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.But the strong nuclear force operates over extremely short distances. If you keep adding protons to the nucleus, eventually it becomes too large to be bound by the strong force and comes unglued easily. This is why larger elements tend to have shorter lifetimes, breaking quickly into smaller pieces. As Phil Blakeman points out, there may be islands of stability in some heavier elements, but this is a relative thing. It might mean that the element has a half life of a microsecond instead of a few nanoseconds.
The essence of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. This is the element's atomic number. But there is a limit to the number of protons that can be placed in close proximity to each other. Protons, having positive charge, strongly repel each other. Atomic nuclei would not be possible were it not for the presence of an even stronger force, the strong nuclear force, which glues the unwilling protons and neutrons into a stable blob.But the strong nuclear force operates over extremely short distances. If you keep adding protons to the nucleus, eventually it becomes too large to be bound by the strong force and comes unglued easily. This is why larger elements tend to have shorter lifetimes, breaking quickly into smaller pieces. As Phil Blakeman points out, there may be islands of stability in some heavier elements, but this is a relative thing. It might mean that the element has a half life of a microsecond instead of a few nanoseconds.So it is highly unlikely that there are any more undiscovered elements with lifetimes even approaching one second.