Sunday, November 29, 2009

Some Chemistry: Artificial Elements, Anti-matter, Artificial Atoms (1)

These ideas help me to give insights to accepting what you might consider as impossible, or improbable. It is known that all the world, all the living and non-living things are made out of some 85 chemical elements. These elements have been discovered, separated and studied by humans and by some law of nature are arranged in a table, periodic table of elements. By those laws, few places in the table had been left empty without humans know any element in the nature to put in those places and no reasonable attempt of scientists could conclude to their discovery until scientists became convinced that due to known rules of nature those places will be left empty forever. The elements that should occupy those places were too unstable and had been decayed hastily to other elements just after they had been forged in the furnace of nature. Thus never got the opportunity to wait for the creation of life and intelligent life to discover them. But from the middle of twentieth century, scientists could imitate that process of forging elements and artificially created them. Though normally they exist with their elemental identities for a short time and quickly decay to more stable elements nevertheless chemists could study their chemical behaviour and became certain that they are the same elements that should put in the empty boxes of the table. Besides these empty places there were places beyond the last discovered elements of nature. Scientists further advanced to create artificial elements for these extra places until the point that it seems impossible or very difficult at present time to go further. These attempts have resulted to have a table of one hundred and eighteen elements of naturally occurring (eighty eight)and artificially made elements (thirty) all together at present time. Some of these elements came to be so useful that factories are built to produce them in tons and being used as commodities of commerce. We should consider that even the artificial elements are natural but their short lives prohibited them to come in human hands after billions years that has passed from the creation of elements. There is nothing surprising or unusual in terms of nature for them more than what we know regarding the natural elements. They are all at their right places as dictated by the law of nature. This was for artificial elements. Next we get to topic of "Anti-matter."

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