This Thursday, the 10th grade at Yeshiva University High School for Boys (MTA) held a party welcoming the acceptance of four new elements to the periodic table. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 were officially confirmed this week, having been made by labs in Japan, Russia and the United States. These elements were created by colliding atomic nucleii into each other in particle accelerators. The resulting atoms are highly unstable and decay very quickly. In fact, the minimum amount of time that the atom needs to exist to be accepted as an element is only one tenth of one trillionth of a second. The experiment must also be able to be duplicated and the results analyzed by many independent scientists. With the acceptance of these new elements by IUPAC, the official chemistry standards society, the seventh period, or row, of the periodic table is now complete.
To celebrate the acceptance of the four new elements (which will receive their official names in a few months), Mr. Goldberg hosted a Shalom Elements party. The students frosted four cakes to look like each of the new elements’ boxes in the periodic table. They then played periodic table jeopardy while listening to Tom Lehrer’s Periodic Table Song. The class welcomed to the table, Ununtrium, Ununpentium, Ununseptium, and Ununoctium.
