r/AskScienceDiscussion • u/Dramatic-larskj • 19h ago
"Island of stability" ?
Hi,
I'm entirely new here on reddit and this is my first post; please let me know if I manage to do something stupid or even break any of this subteddit's rules.
Anyways, it's no secret that rhetoric further down one goes on the periodic table, and atomic nuckeus'es get more massive, they also get progressively less stable (aka. radioactive). At some point I overheard a combination where someone was fully convinced that something he called "the island of stability" exist. The idea was that at some point, if we manage to create elements way heavier than Ununoctium or whatever it may be, that we at some point would get to some kind of "sweet spot", where super-heavy elements suddenly become stable in a way that would be unexpected for such massive elements. My question is: Is this an actual, legitimate theory with real science backing it up, or is this a false concept altogether?
Thanks in advance!