Book Reviewed - Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table, by Kit Chapman

The synthetic proposition

This is a very specialized book that may interest readers who appreciate synthetic chemistry. The author narrates the story behind the discovery of new elements in the laboratory and briefly discusses the chemistry of atoms. These synthetic elements do not exist in nature and decay very rapidly because of very low half-lives. A college level chemistry is helpful to understand and appreciate the work of this author.

Much of the study of new elements took place at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Berkeley, California, and at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research facilities at Dubna, Russia. Other notable work also occurred at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt, Germany and at Japan's RIKEN Linear Accelerator Facility in Wako.

My own interest in this book is to understand what happens when you keep adding protons and neutrons to the nuclei. At some point, the stability of the orbital electrons is destroyed as more protons are added to the nucleus. The maximum atomic number predicted is between 170 and 210; Uranium is the last naturally occurring element that has an atomic number of 92. But the nuclear stability (physics) is not the same as stability of the electronic shells (chemistry). The electronic basis for the periodicity disappears as we go higher in atomic numbers, because electronic shells 8p and 7d orbitals may be very close in energy to 5g an 6f orbitals (closely spaced energy levels.) This is reflected in a series of new elements that show multiple and barely distinguishable oxidation states.

If you look at the physics part, the nucleus also has nuclear energy shells. Just like the electrons orbiting the nucleus have electronic shells. Each nuclear shell will have a cluster of protons and neutrons. If you filled those shells, the nucleus became stable; if left unfilled, the nucleus will break apart.

The author says that element 118, oganesson does not have electron shells, then how do you call that an element? Its atomic number suggests that it is a noble element like helium, neon and argon that contain filled electron shells, and hence known to be inert. It is likely that in oganesson, the electron shells are like electron soup, which makes it quite reactive contrary to other noble elements of the periodic chart. The periodic table stops being relevant here in terms of predicting properties. Theoretical studies indicate that heavy atoms may contort - nuclei stretching out, folding in on themselves, even warping into a doughnut shape with a hole in the middle. The author does not elaborate, nor does he discuss what is “hole” in terms of spacetime warping. There is a certainly relativistic effect. We need more discussion here. Elements with very high atomic numbers challenge traditional way thinking about reality just like black holes. Tightly packed spacetime help us understand the very fabric of this universe.