The Official "When will Element 126 Be Discovered?" Thread

[ewmayer]

Post your guess as to when Element 126, the doubly-magic member of the hypothesized "Island of Stability", will be discovered, specifically give your guesses for the following three data:

D := Date of discovery (the eventually accepted "official" discovery date, not the "first alleged sighting" date, as the latter is often disputed and later revoked in the field of heavy-element synthesis);

H := Half-life of longest-lived isotope;

M := Atomic Mass (#protons + #neutrons) of longest-lived isotope (predicted to be 334, but ya just never know until there's some if the stuff around to measure).

The metric for "who wins by having the closest guess?" will be the following, where all of the deltas (delta (X) := |X_actual - X_guess|) will be normalized in years, i.e. nondimensionalized with a standard unit of 1 year:

Error := delta(D) + |log10(Hactual/Hguess)| + delta(M)

So, for instance, if I guess [15 March 2010, 1 million years, 333] and things turn out as [15 March 2015, 1 year, 335], my guess has an Error = 5+6+2 = 13.

My guess:

15 March 2020
10000 years
334

[jasong]

Had to Google "island of stability."

I really, REALLY need to go back to college.

[Xyzzy]

I really, REALLY need to go back to college.

We'd be happy to have graduated the third grade.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

We'd be happy to have graduated the third grade.

Seriously, what's with the "we"? are you a schizo or something?

Smeagol: ...and take it for ME.
Gollum: For us.
Smeagol: Yes, we... we meant for us.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Seriously, what's with the "we"? are you a schizo or something?

For my explanation, see

http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.ph...8&postcount=37

and

http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.ph...7&postcount=41.

[ewmayer]

Gosh, anyone care to actually stay on-topic?

C'mon - I gave a link to the wikipage for Element 126, all ya gotta do is check that out, then guess a date, half-life and mass - how hard can that be?

Of course, I was also hoping to generate some at least semi-interesting discussion from people who are interesting in this sort of thing, but so far I see a couple of snarky comments followed by some borderline ad hominem flamelets.

Sheesh.

If ya got nothin' worthwhile to say...

[Xyzzy]

D: 19 Jan 2038
H: 1,000,000,000
M: 666

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Gosh, anyone care to actually stay on-topic?

...

Yes.
Does anyone think the element might actually be stable?
I don't see the reason for "doubly" magic if the magic numbers
>126 are unknown.
BTW the magic numbers for nucleons are analogous to the
atomic numbers of inert gases. (Complete shells)

[philmoore]

You didn't specify any units for your half-life, Xyzzy!

My guess is:

D: 1 April 2014
H: 10 milliseconds
M: 310

How long do we have to wait to find out which isotope has the longest half-life, Ernst? I mean, we could go on for years without finding them all.

[Spherical Cow]

Half-life: 1,257,787 years
Discovery Date: 1-March-2049
Atomic Mass: 337

Norm

[Xyzzy]

You didn't specify any units for your half-life, Xyzzy!

Who cares? It's a billion!