Science and Chemistry textbooks are now obsolete. Four new elements have been added to the Periodic Table of Elements. There are now 118 verified elements which completes the 7th row.
The four new elements were verified on 30 December by the US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the global organisation that governs chemical nomenclature, terminology and measurement.
The new elements doesn’t have a name yet. The names and symbols for these elements temporarily named as:
- Ununtrium, (Uut or element 113)
- Ununpentium (Uup, element 115)
- Ununseptium (Uus, element 117)
- Ununoctium (Uuo, element 118)
The four new elements, all of which are synthetic, were discovered by slamming lighter nuclei into each other and tracking the following decay of the radioactive superheavy elements.
Like other superheavy elements that populate the end of the periodic table, they only exist for fractions of a second before decaying into other elements.
Looks like our kids will have more to memorize. I remember knowning fewer elements than this and then element 112 is temporarily named as Ununbium. Today, it is officially named as Copernicium.
For an updated Periodic Table of Elements, you can check Ptable.com.
