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.
They’re formed from smashing zinc and lead atoms at relativistic speed so their perceived lifetimes would be longer at a rest frame. You got me on how to turn that into useful science though.
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.
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.
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.