General chemistry Is the periodic system of elements limitless?

Hi! An interesting chemical-philosophical question 🙂 I think that the number of elements is, of course, limited, the only question is where the limit is and what patterns operate there. At present, elements up to 118 have been discovered or synthesized, but superheavy elements after 103 are too unstable. Currently, many scientists are in search of the so-called island of stability. This is actually quite an interesting topic bordering on nuclear physics. Perhaps this review will seem interesting to you: “The transuranic elements and the island of stability” Kit Chapman, 17 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0535

Good afternoon! 

It is strictly impossible to say that there is a limit or there are no restrictions. I think that the rate of discovery of chemical elements is decreasing, and this is quite logical, since we have already either discovered all the light and heavy elements on Earth or synthesized them. Accordingly, only superheavy transuranic elements remain, the lifetime of their isotopes does not exceed fractions of a second and the probability of detecting them tends to zero. The question arises that, if these elements are found, will we be able to apply them in real practice.

@damiryagudin

But talking about superheavy elements, is it really necessary to apply such superheavy elements in real practice? Nowadays, for example, these elements, although they live extremely little, are used by scientists to develop theories describing the behavior of the universe. I mean, we can do it just for science and research, not for industry, technology etc.

Posted by: @elizaveta-msu

Hi! An interesting chemical-philosophical question 🙂 I think that the number of elements is, of course, limited, the only question is where the limit is and what patterns operate there. At present, elements up to 118 have been discovered or synthesized, but superheavy elements after 103 are too unstable. Currently, many scientists are in search of the so-called island of stability. This is actually quite an interesting topic bordering on nuclear physics. Perhaps this review will seem interesting to you: “The transuranic elements and the island of stability” Kit Chapman, 17 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0535

Thanks!

_{Will wait here 'till new Albert Einstein will reinvent physics once again)}

I think, that the number of chemical elements is limited, because the nuclear forces that ensure the existence of nuclei (and hence the existence of elements) are short-range, that is, the size of the nucleus is limited

@_brauer_ These forces cannot change and have limits?

@argentum the distance over which these forces act is limited

@_brauer_ I do not argue

Hm, I wonder if there is a possibility to create new elements by using dark matter🤔

@elizaveta-msu We can use it in research, but how, even if they are stable. I must say this is not an easy task. Are there any experiments to produce new stable heavy elements other than what you mentioned?