• Question: If a element runs out, will it be removed off the periodic table ?

    Asked by nav1 to Indi, Jarv, John, Ken, Vicky on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jarvist Moore Frost

      Jarvist Moore Frost answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      No! Some of the elements have only ever been manufactured in tiny tiny quantities as they’re so unstable they decay away again almost immediately.

      The amazing thing about the periodic table (or perhaps more properly, the Mendeleev table, as he thought it up!) is that it was made complete with massive gaps that were filled out with elements as we discovered them. It is a simple and beautiful way of relating chemical behaviour to the electronic structure of atoms, as the various angular momentum orbitals are filled with electrons.

    • Photo: Indi Ghangrekar

      Indi Ghangrekar answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Yup, what Jarvist said!

    • Photo: John Prytherch

      John Prytherch answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      As Jarvist says.

      Also, even if we somehow used up all of an element on Earth, that element would still exist in the Universe. All the elements that make up the Earth, that make up you and me, were created in the nuclear reactions going on inside stars. When stars long ago exploded, all that stuff was blown out into the universe, and some of it ended up forming the Earth, and eventually us. This is still going on in the stars we can see in the night sky. 🙂

    • Photo: Vicky Young

      Vicky Young answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      I’d be sad for it if it was!!

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