Element 118

Atomic Number: 118
Atomic Symbol: Uuo
Atomic Weight: --
Electron Configuration: --

 

History

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. 

 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/284/5421/1751