Sensawunda for physics geeks

[bunsen_h]

Okay, part of my reaction to this is probably because I haven't been keeping up on the subject, so there's been a lot of change from how things useta be.  And part is because of the radiochemical research I used to do; isotopes get my attention.

But still.  While I was doing a bit of research for a filk song, I learned that the list of known isotopes of hydrogen now goes up to ⁷H, i.e. 1 proton, 6 neutrons.  The known isotopes of helium now go up to ¹⁰He, i.e. 2 protons, 8 neutrons.  All of them are unstable, other than the lightest two for each element, of course.  But the half-life of ⁸He is a remarkably-long 119 ms, and that of ⁶He is a stunning 806 ms.

Weird.

Comments

[suelet.livejournal.com]

Now...THAT'S a geeky bit of research. Well done!

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

I was looking into fictional substances, which led me to "quadium" from The Mouse That Roared. But it turns out that it does exist: ⁴H, half-life of (1.39 ± 0.10) × 10⁻²² s. I haven't decided if this makes it invalid for my purposes.

[radargrrl.livejournal.com]

Unobtainium.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

That's another. There's a long list on Wikipedia. I've never heard of most of them.

Volunteering

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Gotta love it. Especially when it leads to gems like that.