Four New Elements Added To The Periodic Table

Monday, January 4, 2016 - 11:20 in Physics & Chemistry

2012rc via Wikimedia Commons The periodic table of the elements Scientists just filled in a few gaps Elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117, and 118 have been added to the periodic table. The new elements were added after the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) reviewed scientific studies published by teams of researchers in the United States, Japan, and Russia. The committee deemed that the researchers had “met the criteria for discovery,” as the press release notes, which essentially means that the researchers were able to create them in the lab, if only fleetingly. These elements are among the heaviest in the periodic table and aren’t known to exist outside the lab. They’re highly unstable—just to formulate them in the lab, the researchers had...

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