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Outer Limits: Pushing the Extremities

Published/Copyright: March 19, 2016
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Chemistry International
From the journal Chemistry International Volume 38 Issue 2

Four new elements are highlighted in this issue (see Wire, page 16), presumably completing the bottom row of the existing Periodic Table, the centerpiece of chemistry. Part of the excitement about these discoveries is how well understood chemical (and nuclear) properties at the fringes of Nature are. The exploration of extremities is a current theme in science in general: witness the recent somewhat surprising discovery of the alleged planet X at the solar system periphery, the explorations of the edges of the known universe, and the finding of primitive microbes at depths of kilometers beneath deep sea beds where life would seem unviable. Probes of the limits of knowledge, even though they are becoming more and more difficult and technologically challenging, seem destined to provide continued surprises and excitement. In the case of the Periodic Table, to which elements have been added on an average of every two-and-a-half years over the past three centuries, fairly consistent periodicity has lent confidence to cementing each element onto its anticipated place on the Table’s grid. But with higher and higher coulomb forces by the nucleus on an atom’s electrons, relativistic effects that complicate predictions of chemical properties are becoming extraordinarily influential, increasing at least as Z2 and possibly as fast as Z4. Existing predictions are no longer the source of extrapolation we have become accustomed to. Theoretical quantum-relativistic calculations forecast various projections of behavior that look as if the elements were not yet fastened in place, but rather as if someone bumped into the Table, jarring the regular order at the extremities, where yet-unsynthesized superheavy elements should be placed. Observing the actual chemistry of the new superheavy elements is clearly needed. But the increasing difficulty in producing these species and the daunting challenge of working with very transient objects should not be discouraging. We are not talking about “unobtainium”. As tough as they are, searches for planet X, for astrophysical phenomena at the edge of the universe, and for life where none should be are all part of our scientific quest to understand the understandable and to peek at what lies ahead.

Paul J. Karol

Professor Emeritus, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and Chair of the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party (JWP) on the priority of claims to the discovery of new elements

Cover image: On 30 December 2015, IUPAC announced the verification of the discoveries of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118; the 7th period of the periodic table of elements is complete. Cover design by Purple Zante, Inc.

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© 2016 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Published Online: 2016-3-19
Published in Print: 2016-3-1

©2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Masthead - Full issue pdf
  2. Guest Editorial
  3. Outer Limits: Pushing the Extremities
  4. Contents
  5. Officer’s Column
  6. Secretary General’s Column
  7. Features
  8. The Three-letter Element Symbols:
  9. Procedures for the Naming of a New Element
  10. The Chemical Structure Association Trust
  11. IUPAC Wire
  12. Discovery and Assignment of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118
  13. Open Data in a Big Data World
  14. UN Secretary General Appoints ICSU Executive Director to Special Advisory Group on the SDGs
  15. Project Place
  16. Company Associates Reengineering Project
  17. Postgraduate Course in Polymer Science, Prague, Czech Republic
  18. Critically Evaluated ESR (EPR) Spectra of Important Polymerization-related Radicals
  19. Which Elements Belong in Group 3 of the Periodic Table?
  20. Making an imPACt
  21. Discovery of the elements with atomic numbers Z = 113, 115 and 117 (IUPAC Technical Report)
  22. Discovery of the element with atomic number Z = 118 completing the 7th row of the periodic table (IUPAC Technical Report)
  23. Glossary of terms used in computational drug design, part II (IUPAC Recommendations)
  24. Standard electrode potentials involving radicals in aqueous solution: inorganic radicals (IUPAC Technical Report)
  25. Maritime pollutants in shipping and commercial European ports based on relevant physical and biogeochemical environmental parameters (IUPAC Technical Report)
  26. Latest Updates from PAC Conferences & More—Brief
  27. IUPAC Provisional Recommendations
  28. Glossary of Terms Used in Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology
  29. How to Name Atoms in Phosphates, Polyphosphates, their Analogues, and Transition State Analogues for Enzyme-catalysed Phosphoryl Transfer Reactions
  30. Comprehensive Definition of Oxidation State
  31. Stamps International
  32. Berzelius and the Chemical Alphabet
  33. Conference Call
  34. Latin American Pesticide Residue Workshop—Food and Environment
  35. Ecological Risk Assessment
  36. Where 2B & Y
  37. New Chemistries for Phytomedicines and Crop Protection Chemicals
  38. Function Through Disorder: Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Biology and Medicine
  39. Phosphorus Chemistry
  40. Self-assembly in the World of Polymers
  41. Solubility Phenomena
  42. Blood-Biomaterial Interactions
  43. CODATA-RDA School of Research Data Science
  44. 28th National [Turkish] Chemistry Congress with International Participation
  45. The Power of Norms
  46. Selenium Research (Se2017)
  47. Mark Your Calendar
https://doi.org/10.1515/ci-2016-0201

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Masthead - Full issue pdf
  2. Guest Editorial
  3. Outer Limits: Pushing the Extremities
  4. Contents
  5. Officer’s Column
  6. Secretary General’s Column
  7. Features
  8. The Three-letter Element Symbols:
  9. Procedures for the Naming of a New Element
  10. The Chemical Structure Association Trust
  11. IUPAC Wire
  12. Discovery and Assignment of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118
  13. Open Data in a Big Data World
  14. UN Secretary General Appoints ICSU Executive Director to Special Advisory Group on the SDGs
  15. Project Place
  16. Company Associates Reengineering Project
  17. Postgraduate Course in Polymer Science, Prague, Czech Republic
  18. Critically Evaluated ESR (EPR) Spectra of Important Polymerization-related Radicals
  19. Which Elements Belong in Group 3 of the Periodic Table?
  20. Making an imPACt
  21. Discovery of the elements with atomic numbers Z = 113, 115 and 117 (IUPAC Technical Report)
  22. Discovery of the element with atomic number Z = 118 completing the 7th row of the periodic table (IUPAC Technical Report)
  23. Glossary of terms used in computational drug design, part II (IUPAC Recommendations)
  24. Standard electrode potentials involving radicals in aqueous solution: inorganic radicals (IUPAC Technical Report)
  25. Maritime pollutants in shipping and commercial European ports based on relevant physical and biogeochemical environmental parameters (IUPAC Technical Report)
  26. Latest Updates from PAC Conferences & More—Brief
  27. IUPAC Provisional Recommendations
  28. Glossary of Terms Used in Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology
  29. How to Name Atoms in Phosphates, Polyphosphates, their Analogues, and Transition State Analogues for Enzyme-catalysed Phosphoryl Transfer Reactions
  30. Comprehensive Definition of Oxidation State
  31. Stamps International
  32. Berzelius and the Chemical Alphabet
  33. Conference Call
  34. Latin American Pesticide Residue Workshop—Food and Environment
  35. Ecological Risk Assessment
  36. Where 2B & Y
  37. New Chemistries for Phytomedicines and Crop Protection Chemicals
  38. Function Through Disorder: Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Biology and Medicine
  39. Phosphorus Chemistry
  40. Self-assembly in the World of Polymers
  41. Solubility Phenomena
  42. Blood-Biomaterial Interactions
  43. CODATA-RDA School of Research Data Science
  44. 28th National [Turkish] Chemistry Congress with International Participation
  45. The Power of Norms
  46. Selenium Research (Se2017)
  47. Mark Your Calendar
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