Elemental Puzzle

[davar55]

Must leave here soon. Until the weekend.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davar55

it might help if you did more than just question and actually threw some chem or physics back at me.

?? You want me to educate you about chem or physics? Or what do you mean by "actually threw some chem or physics back at me"?

I took, and passed quite handily, both the freshman and sophomore standard chemistry and physics classes at the California Institute of Technology during the academic years 1967-68 and 1968-69. The physics class content was what is in The Feynman Lectures on Physics. You may speak to me as though I still understand most of that content.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

?? You want me to educate you about chem or physics? Or what do you mean by "actually threw some chem or physics back at me"?

I took, and passed quite handily, both the freshman and sophomore standard chemistry and physics classes at the California Institute of Technology during the academic years 1967-68 and 1968-69. The physics class content was what is in The Feynman Lectures on Physics. You may speak to me as though I still understand most of that content.

I genuinely apologize. And I wasn't referring specifically to you in
my off-hand remark. I just meant that - oh hell - defending a new idea
is hard and might be easier if the challengers presented seemingly
contrary information rather than just (perfectly valid, i might add)
questions.

Please don't consider that I in any way intended to insult you.
On the contrary, your feedback has been cool (even if I'm struggling).

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davar55

I genuinely apologize.

I accept. (But an apology wasn't necessary -- we're just clearing up a misunderstanding, in my view.)

And I wasn't referring specifically to you in my off-hand remark. I just meant that - oh hell - defending a new idea is hard and might be easier if the challengers presented seemingly contrary information rather than just (perfectly valid, i might add) questions.

Presenting seemingly contrary information is what's hard -- when we don't know what it has to seemingly contradict.

Until you show us the whole thing, you can't reasonably expect us to do more than question, so stop asking for us to act as though we knew what your theory is. We don't. We can't read your mind. All we have to go on are these little dribs and drabs you post.

What you've been defending so far are only those little dribs and drabs, not your "new idea", so stop griping about the difficulty of something you haven't even started doing, please.

Please don't consider < snip >

Just drop all that until you actually show us your theory, please.

Please stop the apologizing, stop the claims about how good your theory is, and stop the pronouncements that there is some absolute limit to the number of elements, until that time.

Let your next post be the one where you post your whole theory, please.

[philmoore]

Originally Posted by davar55

First, there ARE no h, i , or higher subshells -- it stops at g !!

This seems quite implausible to me, since the s, p, d, f, and g orbitals arise naturally as solutions in quantum mechanics corresponding to the quantization of total angular momentum. Higher angular momentum states also occur as solutiions of the Schrödinger equation. What makes you think that these states do not exist in nature?

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by davar55

I just meant that - oh hell - defending a new idea
is hard and might be easier if the challengers presented seemingly
contrary information rather than just (perfectly valid, i might add)
questions.

Really, truly, honestly: we can't tell you anything until you start telling us more about your theory. (And "more" is generous: you've given us almost nothing so far.) Start with falsifiable propositions, if possible, then move toward, I don't know, any shred of evidence that you're right.

Originally Posted by davar55

Really, have I gone off the
deep end, or does some of this seem possibly new and important?

I had considered the former possibility, or that you were simply trolling. If you want toavoid giving those impressions, you need to tell us more! We'll understand if it takes you a few days (or even weeks, if need be), but the constant claims without evidence (theoretical or empirical) is maddening.

[retina]

Originally Posted by davar55

In the case of superheavy-elements, there is also the third factor
holding together the nucleus, namely the electron cloud ...

Originally Posted by davar55

Secondly, simply by electron-proton repulsion ...

The protons pull on the electrons to hold the electrons in place and yet you imply that the electrons push back to hold the protons in place? How can they push and pull at the same time?

Isn't that the same as lifting yourself off the ground by pulling on your bootstraps?

Oh, yeah, I deliberately used "push" and "pull" rather than "attract" and "repel". I just felt like doing it.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by davar55

Immeasurable perhaps by current technology, but (while I don't claim to
know it's value) large enough to contribute to nuclear and super-heavy-
element-nuclear stability (or so I "claim"). This is ultimately testable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron..._dipole_moment


Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by philmoore

This seems quite implausible to me, since the s, p, d, f, and g orbitals arise naturally as solutions in quantum mechanics corresponding to the quantization of total angular momentum. Higher angular momentum states also occur as solutiions of the Schrödinger equation. What makes you think that these states do not exist in nature?

There is no doubt whatsoever that states with quantum number l>4 exist in nature.

They have been observed in many excited states of many atoms and ions. It is true that no ground-state atom has yet been found with electrons occupying states with l>4.

In a previous life I was a molecular spectroscopist; part of my research was into the electronic states of the CeO molecule. Ce is an atom with an occupied f (i.e., l=3) shell in the ground state.


Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by bsquared

I don't think the electron cloud has any impact on nuclear stability. Remember that the atomic radius is many orders of magnitude bigger than the nuclear radius. If your super heavy element's nucleus was the size of a baseball, the electron cloud would be several hundred yards away. Too far to significantly influence the behavior of the nucleus by any force that I'm aware of.

Actually, it does have an effect. Your order-of-magnitude picture is true only for electrons which move in a potential of low effective charge. That is, for the outermost (or valence) electrons which are shielded from the full nuclear charge by the innermost occupied orbitals. For both high-Z hydrogenic ions and for the lowest energy orbitals in high-Z atoms your picture is misleading at best.

At very high Z the 1s shell is very small and overlaps significantly with the nucleus. There are at least three effects in play. First, a nucleon has a significant radius and nucleon degeneracy (all nucleons are fermions) ensures that a nucleus with many nucleons has a larger radius than one with fewer. Second, the higher Z implies a larger electrostatic attraction on the electrons, shrinking all the orbitals compared with those around a nucleus of smaller Z. Both of the foregoing are predicted by classical non-relativistic quantum mechanics. When the relativistic mass-dependency on energy of the electrons is considered, the orbitals shrink further.

The nuclear-electronic overlap is easily measurable. Search for K-shell capture (aka inverse beta-decay) for more details. Note that in some cases the 2s orbitals also have a significant overlap, leading to L-shell capture.

Somewhat in tune with davar55's ideas, electron-nucleus overlap does indeed lead to greater nuclear stability. The nucleus captures an electron, converting a proton into a neutron and releasing energy, thereby becoming a more stable nucleus. Perhaps K-shell capture is what davar55 is alluding to when he claims that Z=200 is the highest possible Z. It's far from clear to me that this is what he means, let alone is correct in his assertion, because we have learned so little of his ideas as yet.


Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by davar55

Remember the ionization electrons (those that involve its chemical
properties) are, for larger elements, the six p electrons.

Not true.

The "ionization electron" of Fr, for instance, is in a s-shell like the other alkali metals (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs) and Fr is chemically similar to them. Radium has two s-electrons, like the other alkaline earth metals.

There is absolutely no known reason why eka-francium and eka-radium (aka Uue and Ubn) should not have one and two 8-s valence electrons (the more common name for what you call "ionization electrons") and that is the prediction of current theoretical models.


Paul