The Periodic Table in Motion: Where Will It End?

Dr. Heino Nitsche, the founding director of the Glenn T. Seaborg Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, conducts research into the heaviest elements and their properties. Nitsche is a member of an international team that studied the first chemistry of the heaviest elements, bohrium (107) and hassium (108), and independently verified the discovery of element 114 in 2009 with his Berkeley team. Recently the team discovered six new isotopes, reaching in an unbroken alpha decay chain from element 114 down to 104, rutherfordium. This is a major step toward better understanding how to explore the region of enhanced stability thought to lie in the vicinity of element 114 - and possibly beyond.

Speaker: Dr. Heino Nitscke, UC Berkeley