|
Atomic Number: | 118 |
Atomic Symbol: | Uuo | |
Atomic Weight: | -- | |
Electron Configuration: | -- |
Officially unnamed,
officially unfound
In 1999, the team at Lawrence
Berkley Labs published a paper in the journal Physical Review Papers
proclaiming their discovery of element 118. The scientific community exploded,
hoping that the decay time of 118 (eka-radon) would longer than that of 114.
Element 116 was also synthesized during this reaction, which used cold fusion to
fuse 108Pb and 86Kr atoms together.
However, this experiment
has NOT been repeated successfully at other laboratories. Lawrence Berkley
Labs officially retracted their paper in 2001, saying that they had actually
misinterpreted their data. Despite this, efforts to produce element 118 have
not halted, and element 118 may yet still be synthesized.