4 new elements Nh, Mc, Ts and Og

[ian]

Element 101 is named after him.

The new names and symbols are not yet official - the names are open for public comment for 5 months and changes may be made if they are found to breech technical issues regarding the naming of elements.

So don't write to IUPAC and tell them you want the names changed to include the name of your cat, your dad or your favourite fictional character (yes we have received these requests in the past)

but could we write suggesting that because Elements 104 to 118 have no stable isotopes, they shouldn't have a stable name -- the assigned name could change at a frequency proportional to (or to be really cheeky the inverse proportion) of their half lives?

[BobL]

but could we write suggesting that because Elements 104 to 118 have no stable isotopes, they shouldn't have a stable name -- the assigned name could change at a frequency proportional to (or to be really cheeky the inverse proportion) of their half lives?

There's a lot more that are unstable.

Tc (Atomic number 43), Pm (61) and everything above Atomic number 84 are unstable.

There is a chance that many more elements are unstable, we just don't have the technology to measure their half lives.

Even Hydrogen is expected to have a half life of ~10^30 years - try getting your head around that one )

[ian]

and hydrogen will decay into ...

[ian]

There's a lot more that are unstable.

Tc (Atomic number 43), Pm (61) and everything above Atomic number 84 are unstable.

There is a chance that many more elements are unstable, we just don't have the technology to measure their half lives.

this is getting as bad as determining the winner of a cycling race.

at some point we (in your case "you chemists") need to make a common sense determination.
any element with a half life greater than the age of the earth or the age of the universe (pick one) could by definition be stable.


cycling -- the official rules say "The finish occurs at the instant that the tire of the front wheel meets the vertical plane rising from the starting edge of the finishing line." and digital finish cameras can resolve differences at the level of a single pixel which results in this to dead heat being determined by a pixel

[BobL]

Proton decay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay

[QUOTE=ian;1957550]this is getting as bad as determining the winner of a cycling race.

at some point we (in your case "you chemists") need to make a common sense determination.
any element with a half life greater than the age of the earth or the age of the universe (pick one) could by definition be stable. /QUOTE]

That is basically what we do.
Atomics weights are determined for any element that is present in measurable quantities in nature on earth and has a half life of about the age of the earth.