Man-Made Elements

 Elements. You might have heard this word at some point in your chemistry classes. The world of elements is as simple as it's complicated (if that makes any sense...). Well, here I'll tell you about the man-made ones.

One of the definitions of an element (in chemistry speak) as per Google is "each of more than one hundred substances that cannot be chemically interconverted or broken down into simpler substances and are primary constituents of matter. Each element is distinguished by its atomic number, i.e. the number of protons in the nuclei of its atoms". So, what is a man-made element now? Elements made by man!! See, it's that simple! 

While the man-made (or artificial or synthetic) elements don't naturally occur on our sweet planet, they could have existed elsewhere in the universe at some point, and they have simply disintegrated into relatively smaller elements due to their highly unstable atomic structure and incredibly short half-lives (Ogannesson, the current holder of the title of "the last element of the periodic table" has a half-life of just 5 milliseconds, after which it disintegrates into smaller elements).

These are our synthetic elements: Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Lawrencium, Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicium, Nihonium, Flerovium, Moscovium, Livermorium, Tennessine, and Oganesson. 24 in all (go ahead, I counted all). Pointing out the obvious, these are all named after their discoverers, prominent scientists or places of discovery or research. 

Since they are new in terms of us knowing them, synthetic elements are not really used much, although some, like Americium, are used in smoke detectors. These are mostly just experimental and help us study and retrieve important information regarding nuclear physics, and even how our planet or solar system came to being! (And believe me, scientists are smart enough to play with a gas on earth to calculate the age of some star in another corner of the universe).  

So, I thank you peeps for taking a few minutes to read this. Hope you enjoyed reading this and gained some knowledge. Keep feeding your Grey Matter and I'll see you all next month!

βyё