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Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by TheSpiceIsLife on Thursday December 01, 2016 @09:10PM (#13085398)
Of what value is a substance that has a half life of 1 ms?
Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by xorxornop on Thursday December 01, 2016 @09:34PM (#13085491)
It's not, really - but the techniques used in its nucleosynthesis probably are.

Incidentally, if the compound itself does in the end turn out to be useful, it'll be for the same reason - it'd likely be used as some intermediate in a wider-scope reaction. As is the case for many, many (almost all, realistically) otherwise-"useless" chemicals.

Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by TheSpiceIsLife on Friday December 02, 2016 @12:13AM (#13086219)
Righto, that helps, thank you.
Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by kolinko on Friday December 02, 2016 @05:07AM (#13087448)
If I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons for doing this is figuring out if there is an island of stability somewhere there - a heavy element that somehow remains stable for an extended periods of time.

And there is only one way to figure this out.

Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by semi-extrinsic on Friday December 02, 2016 @11:41AM (#13090058)
Note that it's not just "maybe there is randomly some new heavy element that's stable out there". We see definite hints in the behaviour of known heavy elements, and in our best models of nuclear physics, that point towards a possible island of stability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability

Re:Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of ... by evanb on Friday December 02, 2016 @04:24AM (#13087257)
Its properties also help constrain nuclear physics at high A and Z, which is needed for understanding astrophysical nucleosynthesis and hunts for the island of stability.