
Copernicium Is a Strange Element Indeed - etiam
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/11/copernicium-is-a-strange-element-indeed
======
mcguire
Today's burying the lede award:

" _But the bigger effect is relativistic. That’s actually a notable example of
Paul Dirac being completely wrong about something in physics – he had stated
back in 1929 (PDF here if you’re up for it!) that relativistic corrections to
quantum mechanics were of “no importance” because they would apply only to
very high-speed particles (that is, those moving at an appreciable fraction of
the speed of light). But as it turns out, the inner electrons of the heavier
elements are moving at such speeds (they get faster as the positively charged
nucleus gets bigger and more charged), and this has effects out to the
chemically important outer electrons as well. For one thing, relativistic
particles are heavier, and this actually shrinks the atomic radius of the
heavier elements still more and has complex effects on the various orbitals._
"

~~~
ianai
Good grab!

So basically they both seem to act like their larger scale selves, but in this
case affecting physical characteristics of atoms. Special relativity is going
to make the electrons more heavy and thus change their ionization energies and
interactions with other atoms and energy. Gravity is going to affect their
physical geometries? Idk.

But this reminds me of muonic atoms. I wonder if there’s some sort of point
where the periodic table of electrons and protons/neutrons starts to mirror
its lower energy self with heavier muon atoms.

Just thinking in a text box here, don’t kill me please...

Edit: The muon to electron mass ratio is about 206 for a square root of about
14.4.

I found an equation that says the energy of that electron is on the order of
1/L^2 so to get muonic effects for the electron the box size of the bound
electron, L, needs to decrease by about 1.5 magnitude.

Electron equation: [https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/19212/why-
does...](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/19212/why-does-
electron-velocity-increase-with-the-increase-of-atomic-number)

~~~
rubyn00bie
Kind of sounds like the island of stability to me:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability)

I can’t even begin to imagine what sort of fun and whacky materials could
possibly exist out there, should the island exist.

~~~
ianai
It’d be crazy. Just the electrons would weigh 200x normal

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aazaa
> When it comes to gravity, the two theories [quantum theory and classical
> theory] are completely incompatible, and there is no way to escape the
> conclusion that one or both of them must be seriously incomplete or even
> flat-out wrong about something important. ...

Part of the problem lies with the lack of tools for studying gravity through
the perspective of quantum mechanics due to the scale involved:

> One of the difficulties of formulating a quantum gravity theory is that
> quantum gravitational effects only appear at length scales near the Planck
> scale, around 10−35 meter, a scale far smaller, and equivalently far larger
> in energy, than those currently accessible by high energy particle
> accelerators. Therefore, physicists lack experimental data which could
> distinguish between the competing theories which have been proposed[7][8]
> and thus thought experiment approaches are suggested as a testing tool for
> these theories.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity)

Edit: there's an interesting complement to the linked article which talks in
more detail about the relativistic basis for why mercury is liquid and gold is
yellow:

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-
wavefunctio...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-
wavefunction/what-does-mercury-being-liquid-at-room-temperature-have-to-do-
with-einsteins-theory-of-relativity/)

~~~
api
I think he's speculating that Copernicum and other super heavy elements might
offer some angle. Oddly enough I recall reading about a large amount of
interest in studying mercury back in the 30s and 40s that tapered off. Maybe
there is something there.

Also I would definitely buy "Quantum Physics: A Hand-Wavey Approach" and
suspect you could do a whole series of those books.

~~~
mcguire
_Computer Science: A Hand-Wavey Approach_ would probably flap around the room
under its own power.

------
ratbeard
Pre dece comment explaining some deets why quantum mechanics and general
relativity seem incompatible:

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/11/co...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/11/copernicium-
is-a-strange-element-indeed#comment-309333)

~~~
lostmsu
I keep this in one of my public social profiles. It has concrete math:
[https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4238v1](https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4238v1)

"How Far Are We from the Quantum Theory of Gravity?"

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
This column is by Derek Lowe, best known for the incomparably hilarious
"Things I Won't Work With":
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/th...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride)

------
GCA10
So if we've got 29 seconds to study copernicium atoms' properties before half
of them have decayed into something else, is that sufficient time to create
and cluster enough of them to know anything?

There must be some way of defining "liquid" and "melting/freezing point"
that's quite different from me putting an ice-cube tray of water into the
freezer.

As fascinating as the theoretical relativity/quantum thread here is -- I'd
also be interested in knowing more about the plain old observation techniques
that let us know anything about predicted liquid properties during this very
short observation interval.

~~~
gus_massa
IIUC from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicium)
all most of the macroscopic properties are just predicted in computer
simulations.

If we could produce enough Copernicium and magically disable the radioactive
decay, the bounds between atoms is predicted to be so low that is predicted to
be a liquid in the article, or a gas in Wikipedia.

If we can't disable the radioactive decay, you could look while it disappear
in front of your eyes (halving every 30 seconds, I hope you bought a lot of
it). But also the radioactive decay will create a lot of heat, so it will get
hot, glow and evaporate (and probably destroy the lab). So it's would be
difficult to see if it is a liquid at room temperature experimentally.

In Wikipedia there are the description of a few experiments with two or three
Copernicium atoms. They get adsorbed over a gold surface for a short time
until they decay. To get something like a glass of liquid selenium, you need
something like 10^24 atoms, that is much more than the few atoms that is
posible to get simultaneously.

~~~
GCA10
Thanks! That's very helpful, and shame on me for not visiting Wikipedia first.
That said, the error bounds listed on Wikipedia for a model-generated guess at
melting temperature, etc. are gigantic.

At room temperature, copernicium might be a liquid, unless it's a gas or a
solid.

I appreciate the audacity of researchers in trying to work up some guesses
about physical properties even though the available samples are far too tiny
and short-lived to get any lab confirmations. But articles like OP make it
seem as if we've got well-tested insights. We don't. We're not nearly there
yet. It's very loosely anchored guesswork.

