Question for chemists

[RMG]

Hello everyone,

I'm plotting a short story, and need to get some facts right. Here are my explanation and questions, but please answer only if you know what you're talking about. I think this question is aimed at advanced chemists, but as long as you know the field well...
I really appreciate the will to help, but the problem is that when you have 36 answers that don't even point in the same direction, you're back to where you started...

So, I want to create a fictitious chemical element. In my story, it is an element from which all other are derived. You can obtain any known element from it, by giving it a electromagnetic radiation with the energy level equal to that of that element's (the one you want to obtain) first ionization energy.

First, what do you think of that idea? And second, could you help me describe the element? How would it appear, electronically speaking? How many protons/neutrons should it have? How could I justify the radiation-less and relatively low energy fission?

Thank you very much for your answers,
G.

[Skyler]

Well, in the real world, electromagnetic radiation only changes the orbit of electrons. Changing one element into another involves adding (or subtracting) electrons, protons, and neutrons.

It can be done, theoretically. See also nuclear transmutation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation). It's not restricted to converting a single element into others, however, it can be applied to any element (including turning lead into gold, albeit with a prohibitively high overhead).

But who says you have to stick with what science says? :)

[RainyDayNinja]

It might make a science fiction kind of sense if you started with a super-heavy atom in the "island of stability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability)." Then maybe with precise application of radiation, it could be split into whatever size nucleus you want. Although that would leave byproducts of lighter elements from whatever was left over in the nucleus. But I wouldn't make it the ionization energy of that element; that's just numerology.

But with some tweaking, you could make it a result of string theory. If all of the elementary particles are strings vibrating at certain frequencies, then adding energy in the right way could change the frequency, and turn it into a different kind of particle. That's probably farther in the future, so it depends on what time period you want.

[agent.grey]

If you are looking to stick with anything resembling real science, what defines an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. EM radiation cannot change this in any way I can think of.

The closest idea that springs to mind is that the chemical properties of an element are mostly defined by the behavior of its electron orbital shells.

If you had a material that could mimic electron orbitals, many of the properties ofan element could be replicated.

Not sure if that is of help.

[efkelley]

Hmm. Well, we already have a name for this proto-element: Hydrogen. Put together two hydrogens and you get a helium. Add another hydrogen and you get lithium.

Going the other direction wherein you start big and break down an atom, I think the largest naturally occurring atom (forged at the center of stars) is uranium 92. Or is it plutonium at 94? Eh, I don't want to wiki it.

The closest thing you're talking about would be subatomic particles coming together to form elements. Perhaps the scientists in your story have discovered how to break existing atoms apart and reform them into any elements they wish. If I were to do that, I'd use helium gas. It's plentiful, easily stored, and quite safe.

But there is no 'element zero' known to science at this time.

[FOTSGreg]

Oh, oh! Good thread topic.

I've got a chemistry question as well.

Let's say a character is trapped and under fire at a public swimming pool. The pool is full of water, likely chlorinated, there's a nearby creek, the terrain flows essentially downhill from the pool's location, and the character is trapped where he has access to the pool chemical supplies.

What's the most lethal thing he could do to ward off enemies who aren't expecting a chemical attack?

[dobiwon]

An element is defined by the number of protons. By that I mean that if it has, for example, 3 protons, it's Li; if 23, it's V; if 64 it's Gd, etc.

The first ionization energy is dependent on the electron configuration, so I can't see where it could be used to change one element into another.

On the other hand, if you were to discover a superheavy element on some other world (the heaviest natural element on earth is U), and if it had a nucleus of say 200 protons and if they were arranged in a linear fashion like a bead of pearls and if you could figure out what the mechanism for bonding them would be and if you could quantize the energy of the bond and if you could pinpoint the nucleus with a radiation you could adjust so as to resonate a particular bond along the chain and tailor the fractionation to break off a piece just the size you wanted and if you could figure out how to get the right number of neutrons and electrons to associate with the piece you broke off, you might be able to generate one of the other smaller elements. But hey, anything is possible in fiction.

[Mac H.]

Let's say a character is trapped and under fire at a public swimming pool. The pool is full of water, likely chlorinated, there's a nearby creek, the terrain flows essentially downhill from the pool's location, and the character is trapped where he has access to the pool chemical supplies.

What's the most lethal thing he could do to ward off enemies who aren't expecting a chemical attack?The obvious thing would be an attack with chlorine gas.

This has been used since 1915 as a weapon of war - it actually reacts with the lungs to make hydrochloric acid. It was Fritz Haber who figured out how to use it effectively in war .. he later got a Nobel prize although it was for figuring out how to make ingredients for explosives instead.

The useful side effect is that any reaction that makes gas is fundamentally an explosive as well - as long as it happens quickly in an enclosed container.

The real question is how is he going to MacGuyver the pool chlorine into chlorine gas ?

I'd guess an acid of some kind .. but the details don't matter. Everyone knows not to mix cleaning products so you could just handwave a random cleaning product and claim it is the magic chemical.

The real problem is how your hero is going to get the gas to the bad guys. One way would be to have some kind of grenade - an enclosed can with the cleaning product .. but then a glass bottle with the bleach inside.

When you throw it the glass bottle breaks on landing triggering the reaction. After a few moments of mixing .. boom - and explosion that gives off fumes that literally burns the bad guy's lungs.

Of course this wouldn't work in real life .. but should be good enough for fiction.

It would also be simpler to leave the contraption in one place and lure the bad guys into the trap.

Mac

[LBlankenship]

Oh, oh! Good thread topic.

I've got a chemistry question as well.

Let's say a character is trapped and under fire at a public swimming pool. The pool is full of water, likely chlorinated, there's a nearby creek, the terrain flows essentially downhill from the pool's location, and the character is trapped where he has access to the pool chemical supplies.

What's the most lethal thing he could do to ward off enemies who aren't expecting a chemical attack?

A little more accurate that chlorine gas, but a little trickier to deliver: anhydrous sodium carbonate.

It's sold in pool supply stores for (IIRC) pH-balancing your chlorinated swimming pool (don't want to swim in hydrochloric acid) and is very alkaline. I found out about it while trying to make my own laundry detergent. (it's a bleach-like ingredient, there)

As an alkaline powder, it would be quite corrosive if inhaled. Dissolved in water... you'd have to check the pH of the stuff to see how much damage you'd do, but when any alkaline touches skin it starts turning the fats into soaps. That's why your fingers feel slippery when you get bleach on them.

Just some thoughts.

[RainyDayNinja]

You can produce chlorine gas by mixing the hypochlorite salts with enough acid (hydrochloric, a.k.a. muriatic, acid is best). The problem is that chlorine gas is heavier than air, so it's not going to be very dangerous unless the attackers are crawling on their bellies.

[FOTSGreg]

The pool itself is uphill from where the bad guys are. There's a couple of small streams that run by the pool on each of the short sides (they join downhill a little ways).

I was thinking he could dump some pool chemical into the chlorinated water and use the resulting gas as a distraction while he makes his getaway. He doesn't even have to cause mass casualties, just something that will make them start coughing and look like a gas attack (some smoke, smell, etc.).

[blacbird]

So, I want to create a fictitious chemical element.

This is the "Science Fact" sub-forum, and right there you get stopped. Chemical elements in the universe we know are distinguished by the number of protons in the atomic nucleus. That's an integer, and they are all known up to something like element 118 now. Above element 92 (uranium), they must be created in a nuclear reactor, as they are so radioactively unstable that they don't exist in nature on earth. Above about element 96, even the artificially created ones experience radioactive decay so rapidly that significant quantities of them cannot be created.

From a factual standpoint, what you are trying to do is like trying to create an undiscovered color in the visual electromagnetic spectrum. David Lindsay did just that in his allegorical SF classic A Voyage to Arcturus, but he never tried to get scientific about it. The closest thing I can immediately think of in the SF universe is the infamous "dilithium" crystals that power the Starship Enterprise. And the Trekkers never even try to explain that stuff scientifically.

Most SF tropes (FTL flight, time-travel, etc.) simply don't work as factual scientific things, so I'd recommend you don't even try to explain it. Call it whatever you want, give it the attributes you need, and tell your story. SF readers are well used to suspending disbelief for that sort of thing.

[Pthom]

Indeed. I refrained from moving this thread to the main "speculative" forum because of the potential for a decent chemistry lesson. Such has been obtained here.

I encourage skeptics to look up "element" in the dictionary.

Now, the creation of a new never-before-seen compound--that, I believe, is doable.

But unless you apply so much handwavium to invent new and different elemental particles (there's that word again), there are no new elements, nor is there anything more basic than hydrogen, which, as has been pointed out, is the building block for everything else.

And when we start applying handwavium, we move over to the main forum.

Thanks, blacbird

[PeterL]

RMG, I think that you will have to make major changes to your story. Efkelly is right; hydrogen is the closest things to a parent element, but fusion requires very high eneries and pressures. You might do what Edgar Rice Burroughs did and dream up elements that exist only on his planets.

[JimmyB27]

Handwavium is my favourite element.

:nothing

[Pthom]

I'm more partial to bolognium, but that's just me. Nevertheless, neither handwavium nor bolognium have any place in THIS subforum.

Let's keep the discussions here on science based in fact, or if you prefer, we can move this thread to the main forum and wave your handium d'bologna all you want.

[Mutive]

You can produce chlorine gas by mixing the hypochlorite salts with enough acid (hydrochloric, a.k.a. muriatic, acid is best). The problem is that chlorine gas is heavier than air, so it's not going to be very dangerous unless the attackers are crawling on their bellies.

That said, despite that chlorine is heavier than air, it does diffuse upwards a little...trust me that when the stuff is released, you don't stand in a cloud of it and think "gee, at least it's heavy". ;)

The leaks I've seen have diffused to about 15 feet or so...it's truly nasty stuff. Generally even a small leak is enough to cause an evacuation.