Earlier this week, Senior School pupils were excited to hear from internationally award-winning science journalist Dr Kit Chapman, on his Minerva Lecture about the discovery of new “superheavy” chemical elements.
Dr Chapman is the ex comment editor for Chemistry World, based in Cambridge, UK. He is an internationally award-winning science journalist with a particular interest in science history and element discovery.
The number of elements in The Periodic Table are constantly increasing as new elements continue to be discovered by the scientific community throughout the world. Bombarding elements such as Californium with lighter elements such as Titanium leads to the rare phenomenon of nuclear fusion, thus creating new “superheavy” elements.
The heaviest element discovered to date is element number 118 called Oganesson, named after the nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian (the only person alive today with a chemical element named after them).
Dr Chapman was inventive in his delivery of this concept, having pupils throwing mini marshmallows at his mouth across a laboratory to simulate the rarity of nuclear fusion in a particle reactor. Naming such elements follows a strict series of protocols and using these, it was decided by the pupils that the new element synthesised should be known as Unicornium!
Dr Chapman explained how recent discoveries have heightened the search for yet more new superheavy elements and has given scientist a direction in which to streamline their search. Why try to discover new superheavy elements? Simple, they contain a lot of energy that may lead to new energy sources for the world to utilise.
“Dr Chapman emphasised the ever-evolving world of scientific discovery through physics and chemistry in an entertaining, yet scientifically stimulating lecture.”Year 12 pupil