English subtitles for clip: File:Element hunter Yuri Oganessian on creating new chemical elements-VPRO-The Mind of the Universe.ogv

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Could you tell me what is so unique of this institute?

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This is the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the JINR.

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It celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

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Accidentally...

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...I came to work for the institute the year it was established.

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And I've been working here ever since.

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Its mission is...

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...to research fundamental issues in nuclear physics...

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...in high energy physics...

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...or particle physics as we call it...

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...and in condensed matter physics.

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We do research in theoretical physics...

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...which is applicable to every area I mentioned.

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We have got departments of mathematical studies and IT...

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...and everything else scientists would need nowadays.

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JINR is an experimental facility.

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We have got powerful research tools...

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...including smaller, bigger and super powerful particle accelerators...

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...a nuclear reactor...

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...and a lot of other instruments.

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18 countries...

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...are...

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...JINR Member States.

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The Institute receives funding from its Member States.

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The JINR highest governing body is the Committee of Plenipotentiaries...

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...who are appointed by Prime Ministers of the Member States.

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The JINR Scientific Council defines the science policy of the institute.

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The Scientific Council meets twice a year.

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The members of the Council are prominent physicists...

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...in all the areas that I mentioned earlier.

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They don't have to work for JINR. They are experts.

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In between the meetings of the Scientific Council...

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we work in Advisory Committees for Nuclear Physics...

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...Particle Physics and Condensed Matter Physics.

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This is basically the way JINR operates.

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Which countries are we talking about?

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These 18 countries. Can you give some examples?

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Yes, these countries are JINR Member States.

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There are also some countries which are JINR Associated Member States.

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The Associated Member States are interested in specific areas of physics.

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The JINR Member States include...

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...Czech Republic, Bulgaria...

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...Romania, Poland.

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The East European countries.

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Other JINR Member States include Vietnam...

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...Mongolia...

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...Cuba.

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The Associated Member States are Germany, South Africa...

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Italian physicists are very enthusiastic about this cooperation.

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American physicists work in one of our Laboratories.

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JINR is deeply rooted in the system of international cooperation.

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I would like to mention...

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...that this system of international cooperation...

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...was established back in the Soviet era.

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Back then the international cooperation was not very active.

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Despite that fact, JINR was granted this advantage.

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We ran ahead of many other institutions.

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And even nowadays the legacy of those times...

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...lives on and we build on it in our work.

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This is why...

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...I mean...

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...JINR is well-known for its accomplishments...

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...as well as for its deep integration into the world science.

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Numerous teams of our scientists work in CERN...

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...in the US Brookhaven National Laboratory...

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...in Fermilab and other research centers.

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Foreign physicists come to JINR to use our particle accelerators.

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This is a true spirit...

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...of science, which should be international.

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And what is your role in it?

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What is your role in the Institute?

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What is your function?

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We focus on three main areas of research:

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particle or high energy physics, nuclear physics...

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...and condensed matter physics.

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I am mostly involved in the nuclear physics research.

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We use a wide range of accelerators in our programs.

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We run a nuclear reactor...

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...and an accelerator of heavy ions in the neighboring laboratory.

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Historically, physicists use accelerators of heavy ions...

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...for their research in nuclear physics.

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I work in the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.

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Essentially, we study the physics of heavy ions.

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It became a separate area of physics soon after I came to work for JINR.

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Back then, there were just two labs in the world working in this field.

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One of them was located here.

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The other one was in Berkeley, California.

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But when it became obvious...

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...that we obtain so much scientific data in this area of physics...

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...many countries established new laboratories.

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Including the USA, France, Germany, Poland.

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There was one in Groningen, too. To name a few. And then...

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...National Laboratories of Heavy Ions were established.

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Later we saw International Laboratories which run large colliders.

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The CERN large collider accelerates both protons and heavy ions.

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We are going to build a large heavy ion collider, too.

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This is the area of research...

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...where we use...

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...very heavy particles to bombard the targets.

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This area of physics is gradually developing.

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There are large colliders in the USA, Japan and China.

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Nowadays, nuclear physicists widely use...

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...this method to research the atomic nuclei.

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This is something we do here, too.

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Of course, this is a very complex subject.

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We have to research the ways particles interact at various energy levels...

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...and the new particles and new nuclei they generate in this interaction.

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And what is so different about these new nuclei?

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One of our missions...

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...is to produce the heaviest nuclei...

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...which don't exist in nature.

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We want to advance as much as possible.

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We want to know the maximum possible atomic mass.

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What is the limit?

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What is the heaviest possible atomic nucleus?

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It is interesting...

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...because if we want to answer this question...

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...we must build on everything we already know about the atomic nucleus.

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Any uncertainty in our knowledge may generate multiple answers.

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One of them would be correct. And the rest should be discarded.

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Which in turn would oblige us to review earlier theoretical models.

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This is sort of a sharp point which we can use...

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...to test our theories and our knowledge...

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...of atomic nuclei, nuclear forces, and nuclear transmutations.

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For quite a while now...

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...physicists take great interest in this thing.

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We want to answer this question.

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I believe we wanted that even before the era of nuclear physics.

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The man always eagerly probed for the limits of the material world.

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Each time he interpreted his discoveries...

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...depending on his perception of the world around him.

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Probably, the first deep analysis of the material world...

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...was performed at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century.

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Dmitri Mendeleev was the first person...

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...to put the elements you can find in soil in a certain order.

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He created his periodic table of elements.

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The chemical properties of elements can be put in a certain order.

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The inner structure of the elements...

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...which we didn't know about back then revealed itself in a certain way.

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Then we went further and developed the quantum mechanics.

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Einstein, Rutherford, a model of an atomic nucleus.

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The physics gained a momentum and started to develop really fast.

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And it made us even more eager to go to the limit.

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That was the golden age of physics when one discovery followed the other.

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Every discovery transformed our perception of the world. And every time...

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...this new perception could have been tested...

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...on the nuclei in their excited state.

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But we had to excite the nuclei which was always hard.

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We don't get excited that easily either. The same thing here.

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This is why we established the laboratory...

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...to research the ultimate limit of the nuclear mass.

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We didn't do it from scratch.

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It all started during World War II...

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...when the US scientists produced plutonium. It is a man-made element.

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It was synthesized back in 1940.

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By Glenn Seaborg and Philip Abelson.

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The US built a nuclear reactor in 1943.

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And it produced considerable amounts of plutonium.

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We know that that plutonium was used to make a nuclear bomb.

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We should also keep in mind that later the energy of plutonium was used...

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...for civilian purposes, too.

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We used it to generate electricity and for many other things.

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The atomic number of plutonium is 94.

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The last naturally occurring element is uranium. Its number is 92.

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They are just two digits away from each other.

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But these two steps are the steps into the realm...

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...of elements which don't occur in nature and which we can only synthesize.

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I wanted to draw your attention to the fact...

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...that these are also two steps into the past.

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Because 4.5 billion years ago...

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...when the Earth was formed, plutonium was there.

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Its half-life is 25.000 years. This is why it decayed before we could trace it.

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But in the 20th century...

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...we found a way to produce it in the lab and explore its properties.

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We developed a plutonium industry.

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We breed hundreds of tons of plutonium.

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We found the ways to put this element to use.

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And we took just 2 steps. But why not take 3 or 4 or 5 steps?

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And we started to do so.

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6, 7, 8, 9, 10 steps.

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Yeah, we continue.

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Element 93. Could you start there?

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Yes, this is...

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Well...

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We took 2 steps to produce plutonium with the atomic number 94.

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Then we took 3, 4, 5, and 6 steps.

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And finally, we approached the element...

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...which could not exist, theoretically.

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But it does exist.

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We went further and produced the next one. And the next one.

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That meant there was something wrong with the classical theory.

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It gave us an incorrect prediction of the limit.

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The classical theory rules out...

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...elements with atomic numbers over 100.

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But we produced elements with atomic numbers 102...

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...103, and 104.

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Back in 1964.

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That was not that long ago.

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We knew that we had to find some explanation...

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...of this fact and many others...

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...which didn't fit in the old classical theory.

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The old theory proved very useful.

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It helped us explain a lot of things.

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But it could not predict the limit. The predicted limit was incorrect.

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And so, we had to develop a new theory...

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...that would help us understand...

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First of all, it had to be the same efficient in describing the world.

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But also, it had to explain why we can go beyond the limits of the classical theory.

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We found an explanation...

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...in 1969.

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The new theory gave us an opportunity to produce new elements.

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But their half-life would be shorter and shorter with every new element.

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Although it also predicts that the elements...

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...with large atomic numbers may have longer half-life again.

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I wonder if you could imagine an island on the half-life timeline.

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That would be an island made of very heavy elements.

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Super-heavy elements as we call them.

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And they will exist significantly longer...

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...than their lighter precursors.

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They are placed in the periodic table...

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...where no elements can exist in accordance with the old theory.

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But the new theory gives us this opportunity.

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Hopefully the new one is correct.

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Because it can also be wrong.

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These are postulated elements.

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We should prove if they exist or not.

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At some point we will have to say yes or no.

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And we have to do much work to do so.

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We have to try and synthesize these elements.

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And I don't mean the element with the atomic number 94.

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Or 104. Or even 114.

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We also have to explore their properties.

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So...

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How do you do that? I mean, making an element?

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Yes, and all the best physicists and experimentalists came together...

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...to try and solve this problem.

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The first experiment was conducted in 1970. Just a year later.

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In France.

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I was invited to participate in it in the Joliot-Curie Institute.

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I took part in this experiment and we got no results.

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The physicists put in great efforts to discover these elements.

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They used powerful reactors to search for super-heavy elements.

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We tried to trace them in the nuclear explosions.

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We looked for them in nature.

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In cosmic rays.

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In various chemical reactions.

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In nuclear reactions, which involved heavy particles and neutrons.

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Unfortunately, those experiments...

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...yielded no results.

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We launched this program...

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...back in 1970.

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And I should say...

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...that we hadn't achieved any results by 1990.

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And no results by 1995.

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And we conducted those experiments in the biggest research centers...

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...in the US, in Dubna, Russia and France.

257
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:55,000
That was quite a difficult moment.

258
00:19:56,360 --> 00:19:59,160
What should we do? We...

259
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,320
We couldn't produce any new elements.

260
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,560
And we could neither prove nor rule out their existence.

261
00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:11,360
Is the theory incorrect again?

262
00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,360
What if these elements don't exist?

263
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,920
But then we would have to review the theory once again.

264
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,560
The old one didn't work. The new one didn't work either.

265
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:27,040
So, we need one which would explain our earlier results...

266
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,560
...and postulate that these super-heavy elements can't exist.

267
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:37,400
That was difficult. Because there were too many things to explain.

268
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:42,560
The things we had done in the nuclear physics for years.

269
00:20:44,080 --> 00:20:48,240
That was quite disappointing.

270
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:54,320
Or what if we just didn't know how to produce these elements?

271
00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:59,800
What if our instruments were not powerful enough to produce them?

272
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:05,360
That moment I thought...

273
00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:08,560
And my colleagues thought that too.

274
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:15,280
Most probably we didn't have tools to produce those elements.

275
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:20,560
Should we change our philosophy then? What if we set wrong objectives?

276
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:24,560
But then we synthesized some new elements before.

277
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:30,360
Those were not super-heavy ones. Probably that's where the difference lies.

278
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,640
We had to raise the bar significantly.

279
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:39,280
We decided to use artificial material to make our target.

280
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:44,080
That meant we had to use powerful reactors...

281
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,720
...to breed the material for our targets.

282
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,800
And we had to radically change the way...

283
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:54,120
...we choose...

284
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:57,680
...the bombarding nuclei.

285
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:03,320
We had to find a new acceleration mode and a new ion source.

286
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:07,960
We had to do some hard work.

287
00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:11,320
And now I would like to tell you...

288
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:17,920
...that at the end of the 20th century...

289
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:23,640
...and at the beginning of the 21st century the people of science understood...

290
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:30,000
...that if they wanted to accomplish some ultimate missions...

291
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,080
...they would have to work together as a team.

292
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:38,600
Imagine, a group of scientists is working somewhere far away...

293
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,440
...in the other part of the world.

294
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,800
And they achieved good results with their equipment.

295
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,280
Another team somewhere in France...

296
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:52,640
...got some results with other instruments.

297
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,400
But when we put their efforts together...

298
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:58,240
...and utilize...

299
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:05,600
...all the scientific accomplishments of the mankind...

300
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,320
we may get to an entirely new level.

301
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,760
And so, we decided to opt for this approach.

302
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,600
We brought an ion source from France...

303
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,760
...and redesigned it to our needs.

304
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:23,360
We involved our American colleagues who ran a powerful reactor.

305
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,720
We asked them to breed this material for us.

306
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,760
We upgraded our own accelerator.

307
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:39,320
We developed a new technology to accelerate the ions of calcium-48.

308
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,560
We devised a whole new installation.

309
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,640
But then we didn't like it and we did it all over again.

310
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,520
We didn't like the new set-up either.

311
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:56,280
And so, we started to modify it once again.

312
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:04,280
At the very end of 1999...

313
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:10,240
...in winter we conducted our first experiment.

314
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:14,520
The plutonium bred at the reactor in the US...

315
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:19,920
...had to be bombarded by calcium-48, produced by the separator in the Urals...

316
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,520
...in the ion source we received from France...

317
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:30,520
...installed at the new separator system which was designed here.

318
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:34,440
And that was the very first time when we saw...

319
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,040
...the fission of the element with the atomic number 114.

320
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,680
The fission took quite long.

321
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:46,760
You could even look at the watch.

322
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:51,880
Element 114 was stable for two seconds before decaying into Element 112.

323
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:56,840
Element 112 was stable for half a minute before decaying into Element 114.

324
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,760
I mean, Element 110. And Element 110 decayed spontaneously.

325
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:02,480
That was...

326
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,560
...extremely unusual. Because the elements which were synthesized earlier...

327
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:13,720
...like Elements 108 or 109, their half-life was just several milliseconds long.

328
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,440
Or several microseconds. Compared to seconds for Element 114.

329
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:21,920
And so, we saw that our latest theory was correct...

330
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,120
...in the estimation of the half-life of these elements.

331
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,360
We felt truly encouraged.

332
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:33,880
After that experiment...

333
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,440
...we lived another 10 years of our lives.

334
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,680
We got more confident and relaxed. We knew we would get the results.

335
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:48,160
We upgraded the sources and the accelerators and the equipment.

336
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:52,480
Our American colleagues bred more material for our new targets.

337
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:58,360
This is the way we produced a whole range of new elements.

338
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,360
We took full advantage of the reactor.

339
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,160
We took full advantage of our accelerator.

340
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,880
As a result, we produced Elements 113, 114, 115...

341
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:19,080
...116, 117, and 118. The six elements.

342
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:24,920
You can ask me why six and not seven.

343
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,000
If the reactor could produce a heavier target...

344
00:26:29,120 --> 00:26:32,080
...we would have synthesized seven elements.

345
00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:35,360
With an even heavier one we could produce eight of them.

346
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,680
The reactor has its limits.

347
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,640
Even the most powerful of all the reactors...

348
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,280
...can't produce a target...

349
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,840
...with the atomic number 99. The one with the atomic number 98...

350
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:52,080
...gives us Element 118. But we can't have a target with the atomic number 99.

351
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,080
As a result, by now...

352
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,760
...we can benefit from everything...

353
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,640
...which was developed by our predecessors in different areas of physics.

354
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,960
In the physics of nuclear reactors and the accelerators...

355
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:13,520
...and the physics of nuclear reactions. We did our thing. In this way, of course...

356
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:19,000
...it is very good that we did it. But it is not only us...

357
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:22,360
...who did it. This is also an accomplishment...

358
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,200
...of many generations of physicists before us.

359
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,000
So...

360
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,040
Could you explain me...

361
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,160
...an element? What is an element?

362
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,280
What is... - An element?

363
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:46,080
Could you explain it? What is an element? The element in itself? What is it?

364
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,960
We are talking about elements now.

365
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,600
But in fact, we produce atomic nuclei.

366
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,760
Whilst an element is an atom.

367
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,920
We trigger a nuclear reaction in order to modify the nucleus.

368
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,320
We convert a nucleus into a new one.

369
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,720
I am sorry. - No problem.

370
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,040
So I'll ask... No problem.

371
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,440
...the question again. What is an element?

372
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,760
We convert a nucleus into a new one.

373
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:58,480
And when the new nucleus is synthesized, it attracts electrons.

374
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,920
And then this is an atom. This is a new element.

375
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:08,080
And then we can explore the chemical properties of this element.

376
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,920
Since we can explore the chemical properties, chemists come into play.

377
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,640
Let us remember the table of elements now.

378
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,920
This table is called periodic.

379
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:24,880
So we should place this new element...

380
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:31,600
...in the table where its expected chemical properties...

381
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,920
...in accordance with the fundamental Periodic Law...

382
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,840
...would match this very position. What do I mean to say?

383
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:46,440
If we produce Element 112, it should be placed below mercury.

384
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:54,080
If you produce Element 114, it should be placed in a column under lead.

385
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,440
If you produce Element 118, it should be placed under radon.

386
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,040
This is what the Periodic Law is about.

387
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,120
But then we have to do one more thing.

388
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,880
We must check if these new elements are subject to the Periodic Law.

389
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,280
We have to conduct chemical experiments.

390
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,240
Not physical but chemical ones.

391
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,640
And we have to work with atoms instead of atomic nuclei.

392
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,000
Otherwise we can't answer this question.

393
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,920
Just imagine. Thanks to the fact...

394
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:34,920
...that these new super-heavy elements exist long enough...

395
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,000
...seconds instead of milliseconds...

396
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,440
we can conduct these experiments. And we did that.

397
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:45,120
We carry out these experiments nowadays, too.

398
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,440
The experiments proved that the placement of the new elements...

399
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:49,840
...was correct.

400
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,280
Though their properties were a little bit different...

401
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,120
...from those predicted...

402
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,280
...by the Periodic Law.

403
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:09,000
These differences are caused by relativistic effects.

404
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:13,120
The electrons of a super-heavy atom are also very heavy.

405
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:18,520
We should keep that in mind when we explore the chemical properties.

406
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:25,480
The relativistic effects were always there with heavy elements.

407
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:30,720
I should mention that gold is what it is because of relativistic effects.

408
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,480
And mercury is a liquid metal because of relativistic effects.

409
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:39,680
With super-heavy elements these effects should be even more evident.

410
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,520
And they are. But still these elements can be placed in the table...

411
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:50,240
...as predicted by Mendeleev and his Periodic Law.

412
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,680
And what can we do with the new elements?

413
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:58,600
What is it for the humanity? What does it mean what you are doing?

414
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:03,600
This is something I wanted to mention. In fact, it doesn't mean a thing.

415
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,000
Nothing. Because we can produce these elements...

416
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,480
...in ultralow quantities. We can produce their atoms.

417
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:17,280
We are happy to produce an atom a day.

418
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:24,200
Or even an atom a month if we are talking about rare elements.

419
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,880
But anyway, we are sure that we produce them.

420
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,120
Because we record events which prove it.

421
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,960
We have got lots of things to do...

422
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,120
...to thoroughly explore their properties.

423
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,000
This is why we should produce more.

424
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,840
10 times or even 100 times more. 1000 times more.

425
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:54,080
Then we could launch full-scale research programs.

426
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:01,720
And they won't be anything exotic. Just regular research work.

427
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,640
But if you want to do that...

428
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,960
...you should take a pause and try to figure out what you should do next.

429
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,040
You can't do any research if you produce an atom a day.

430
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,480
Your life would be too short for that.

431
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,520
This is why we came up with a surprising question.

432
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,040
10 years later...

433
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:35,080
10 years after we started experiments with super-heavy elements.

434
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,880
What would be the way we would do the same things today?

435
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,400
Not 10 years ago, but today.

436
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,880
We produced some super-heavy elements. We know their properties.

437
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,240
We know the ways to produce them.

438
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,400
And we know the ways you can never produce them.

439
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:02,760
This is one side of this coin. We know something. We got some knowledge.

440
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:08,080
But on the other hand, we saw major technological advances in those years.

441
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:13,120
We have got different accelerators and different sources now.

442
00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:15,160
And the computers are different.

443
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:19,440
Everything has changed a lot in those 10 years.

444
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,560
If we use our knowledge...

445
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:26,560
...on the technological innovations of the previous 10 years...

446
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:33,720
...we can produce 100 times more of these elements quantity-wise.

447
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:40,000
And we decided to build a factory to produce super-heavy elements.

448
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,040
We are building this laboratory now.

449
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:50,080
We hope to start the experiments at the end of next year.

450
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,720
Naturally, those experiments will be different from what we are doing now.

451
00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:00,320
We don't know what these experiments will be.

452
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,480
Everything can change on the way. This is what science is about.

453
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,040
But something is clear.

454
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,000
We can use this facility...

455
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,840
...to conduct 2-3 experiments a year.

456
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,200
And each of them will include thousands of events.

457
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:24,880
And then we will probably see something we can't see now...

458
00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:30,440
...because we don't have enough of these exotic elements.

459
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,000
This is our future.

460
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:39,360
But it means also that at this point we don't know yet...

461
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,920
...what we can do with the new elements? Is that correct?

462
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:44,520
Yes, now...

463
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,400
At this moment, these new elements do nothing else...

464
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:52,520
...but give us some fundamental scientific data.

465
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:57,560
They help us confirm...

466
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,680
...that our knowledge of the atomic nucleus...

467
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:04,800
...is correct.

468
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:11,480
The experimental results confirmed it in terms of quality and quantity.

469
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,840
The difference from the predicted values is within 5%.

470
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,560
The super-heavy elements...

471
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,560
...proved 10 times more stable than predicted theoretically.

472
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,920
This is one major thing.

473
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:33,880
These experiments confirmed all the theoretical concepts.

474
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:39,840
Regarding the practical use of these elements...

475
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:44,040
I should say that the results of these experiments...

476
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,600
...conducted here and in CERN...

477
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:54,280
...are not of any practical use. These results are too hard to obtain.

478
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:59,480
You can hardly do it anywhere else.

479
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,440
The practical use arises...

480
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,280
...from everything we do on the way.

481
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,040
You are forced to review a lot of things.

482
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,680
Sometimes you have to invent an electronic system which doesn't exist.

483
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,480
But you need it for your experiments.

484
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,360
Or you must design a plasma source which doesn't exist.

485
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,720
But you want it. Otherwise you can't do anything.

486
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,360
And there are a lot of things like that.

487
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,280
We must upgrade the chemical equipment...

488
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,960
...which explores single atoms to define chemical properties of new elements.

489
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:42,560
We get a lot of spillover effects.

490
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:48,520
Imagine a drag behind a trawler.

491
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,080
And it brings you so many new fish.

492
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:58,520
Yes, we can aim for super-heavy elements.

493
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,320
Or they aim for Higgs boson in CERN.

494
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:06,000
But the research of the Higgs boson brings so many new things in other areas.

495
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,960
This is the practical use of this kind of research.

496
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:16,360
The point is that many talented people dedicate their lives to this program.

497
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,080
And this is what pushes the science forward.

498
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,560
I believe this is very important.

499
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:31,120
It's almost like alchemy.

500
00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:37,120
Yes, by the way, this is also very interesting.

501
00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:40,560
Of course, this research of new elements...

502
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:45,360
...is sort of ancient alchemists' dream come true.

503
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:51,600
They wanted to turn lead into gold.

504
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,600
In order to accomplish this goal...

505
00:38:57,720 --> 00:39:01,800
...they heated lead, hammered it...

506
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,920
...treated it with extremely corrosive substances.

507
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:12,360
They got it right that this transformation required energy.

508
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:16,320
But they could never understand how much energy they needed.

509
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:21,840
If they hammered lead at the speed of a tenth of the speed of light...

510
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,640
...they could probably accomplish their goal.

511
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:28,600
The point is...

512
00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:32,160
...that if you want to convert an element into another one...

513
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:34,760
...you have to convert its atomic nucleus.

514
00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:38,760
It's not about electrons. It's not about chemistry.

515
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,760
You must convert the atomic nucleus.

516
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:47,000
That would mean a nuclear reaction. Alchemists couldn't do anything like that.

517
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,360
Can you explain me the island of stability?

518
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,360
Could you elaborate on that?

519
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,040
Well, this is...

520
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:06,400
The new theory put forward the following concept.

521
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:11,600
The higher the atomic number is or the heavier the element is...

522
00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:14,720
...the shorter its half-life is going to be.

523
00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:24,000
But this trend will be reversed with very high atomic numbers.

524
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,920
Because the nuclear matter is not amorphous...

525
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,320
...like liquid, like a drop of water.

526
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:33,240
It has some inner structure.

527
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:38,440
And this inner structure is the reason behind the increase of the half-life.

528
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,560
This increase...

529
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:47,920
This area where the elements will be stable enough was called an island.

530
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:55,680
Compared to the elements we have got now which are like a continent.

531
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,320
Hence this name.

532
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,600
This is why when we talk about super-heavy elements...

533
00:41:01,720 --> 00:41:05,480
...and you ask me where they are, I would say that they are on the island.

534
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,280
These are island elements, if I may say so.

535
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:15,840
Like Britain is an island. These elements are somewhat similar.

536
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,160
Right...

537
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,000
Another important point is that the peak of this island is pretty high.

538
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,840
The elements there may be very stable.

539
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:35,760
At the moment we deal with the isotopes...

540
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,040
...which are decay products of these future elements...

541
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,120
...and their half-life is 30 hours. Or a day.

542
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:46,200
But this is not the limit.

543
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,080
We should approach the peak of this island. But we can't do that now.

544
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,480
We put a lot of effort...

545
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,560
...into reaching this island and stepping on it.

546
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,400
But now we must climb the mountain.

547
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:06,240
One of the goals we want to accomplish at our super-heavy elements facility...

548
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,560
...is to climb this mountain.

549
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:11,360
Of course, we are destined to lose a lot on the way.

550
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:15,160
Probably, we will produce nothing but single atoms again.

551
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,720
But these atoms will be stable for a very long time.

552
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,440
And this is something we must do.

553
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:29,320
Since the half-life of these elements is so long...

554
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,200
...can we probably find them in soil...

555
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,280
...or in cosmic rays?

556
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:37,320
We still hope to do so.

557
00:42:38,720 --> 00:42:42,080
We keep on conducting experiments...

558
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,800
...under the Alps.

559
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:51,520
In the tunnel which joins Italy and France...

560
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:57,200
...there is an underground laboratory with the Alps for its roof.

561
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,040
4000 meters high.

562
00:42:59,240 --> 00:43:02,800
The Alps protect this lab from cosmic rays.

563
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:08,440
We work in a clean environment. And we can record extremely rare events...

564
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,880
...of super-heavy elements decaying in the natural samples...

565
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,400
...if they are present there.

566
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,680
The instruments we are using let us record...

567
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,800
...even one decay event per year.

568
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,120
This is the thing.

569
00:43:26,240 --> 00:43:28,480
Just imagine.

570
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:33,280
This is less than the concentration of gold or uranium in soil...

571
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:37,720
...by about 17 orders of magnitude.

572
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,040
17 orders of magnitude.

573
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:47,160
Other methods...

574
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,040
...Professor Flyorov developed...

575
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,760
...provide for the search for these elements in cosmic rays.

576
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:58,240
Though not present in the solar system these elements may exist in outer space.

577
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:02,720
Or maybe these elements...

578
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:06,840
...which were formed in the solar system 4.5 billion years ago...

579
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,600
...are being formed on other planets right now.

580
00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:12,400
And we can trace them in cosmic rays.

581
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:17,080
By the way, the composition of these rays is similar to those we find on Earth.

582
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,440
But they are younger.

583
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:24,760
And they may contain traces of these elements. This is another point.

584
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,240
I mean...

585
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:33,560
...that we don't know how high the peak of this island is.

586
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,680
We don't know if this is the only island like this.

587
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:42,200
Or if there is another one made up of even heavier elements.

588
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,280
Those would be hyper-heavy elements.

589
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,720
But we should understand...

590
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,400
...analyze and interpret or even predict this possibility...

591
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,240
...through the research of the things we have obtained by now.

592
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:02,920
This is why we pin hopes...

593
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,520
...on this super-heavy element production facility.

594
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:12,680
Factor 100 may help us...

595
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:17,160
...answer this question. Or not.

596
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:22,320
In that case we will have to find some other way.

597
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,240
This is what scientific life is all about.

598
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,080
Are there many factories like this in the world?

599
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,320
None. This is the first one of its kind.

600
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,600
The very first one.

601
00:45:35,720 --> 00:45:39,560
I hope there will be more. But this is the very first one.

602
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,080
This is the first factory?

603
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,560
We'll see how it's going to work.

604
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,760
If this concept proves attractive we'll have more factories like this.

605
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:55,960
And why is it built here? In Russia?

606
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:58,760
Why is it built here, in Russia? In Dubna?

607
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,040
But this is our idea and our concept.

608
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:10,320
We decided to stop and redo everything from scratch.

609
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,840
This is our idea and our design.

610
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:19,800
We designed the accelerator and the rest of the instruments.

611
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:25,360
Even the building. We designed it, too.

612
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,760
This factory should be around the corner.

613
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,520
Then I can stand up and go and see what's going on there.

614
00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:40,520
We presented this project to the Scientific Council.

615
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,920
That was 5 years ago.

616
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,000
Even 6 years ago.

617
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:57,880
Of course, the project required significant financial investments.

618
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:03,440
It is a large-scale project. In fact, we were talking about a new laboratory.

619
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:06,520
With a new accelerator and a whole new set-up.

620
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,000
The Council approved the project.

621
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,120
And we received money to go on with it.

622
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:22,240
The JINR Scientific Council approved these investments...

623
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:27,240
...into one of the most promising areas of research.

624
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,680
On the other hand, in the USA...

625
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:39,960
I went there twice. And we submitted a request to the Department of Energy.

626
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,040
And they approved our project, too.

627
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,200
The general feeling is...

628
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,800
...that it is a promising program and we should carry on.

629
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:56,360
The factory will be another step forward in this direction.

630
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:04,600
That's a magical thing that you created. This factory.

631
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,640
No, this is...

632
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,880
I think this concept made sense.

633
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:16,640
It is based on everything we already did.

634
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:20,640
At some point we had to stop...

635
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:26,000
...and choose our way. This is what we do in life.

636
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,880
But you are standing on the shoulders of people like Flyorov.

637
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,720
Well, yes.

638
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:43,160
I am really sorry Flyorov didn't live long enough to see it.

639
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:48,800
Neither Flyorov nor Seaborg in the US.

640
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,280
They desperately wanted to produce super-heavy elements.

641
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,120
And they did a lot...

642
00:48:55,240 --> 00:48:58,080
They did a lot to make their dream come true.

643
00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:04,640
But unfortunately, we found the right way to do it when they passed away.

644
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,600
Could you explain me about the elements?

645
00:49:11,720 --> 00:49:14,320
How do you make an element?

646
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:22,640
If we want to transform an atomic nucleus I was talking about earlier...

647
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:28,280
And we have to do it to convert an element into another one.

648
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:33,440
Then we should manipulate it in some way.

649
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:39,080
One of the most obvious methods is...

650
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:44,800
...for example to fuse two atomic nuclei.

651
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,400
We should bring them into contact.

652
00:49:48,240 --> 00:49:50,440
And then...

653
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:54,840
...the forces of nuclear attraction will...

654
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:58,240
...make the bigger nucleus take up the smaller one.

655
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:03,280
This process is called fusion.

656
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,440
But first we have to bring them into contact.

657
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:09,640
Both nuclei are positively charged.

658
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,520
And we should find a way to overcome the repulsive force between them.

659
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,000
This is why we must accelerate the nuclei.

660
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,360
Their velocity should be high.

661
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:23,040
About one tenth of the speed of light.

662
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:26,600
And so, we need some machine to accelerate the nuclei.

663
00:50:26,720 --> 00:50:30,920
This machine is called an accelerator.

664
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:37,600
Let's assume I would like to produce...

665
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:44,160
...element with the atomic number 100. I would take uranium I can find in soil.

666
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:48,480
Its atomic number is 92. I will use it to make a target.

667
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,320
The target will contain atoms of uranium.

668
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:53,720
I would blast it with nuclei of oxygen.

669
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:56,680
But I will have to accelerate the nuclei of oxygen...

670
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,880
...to the velocity of one tenth of the speed of light.

671
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:04,120
I can't accelerate oxygen as is. Because it is neutral.

672
00:51:04,240 --> 00:51:06,600
I want its nuclei to be charged.

673
00:51:06,720 --> 00:51:10,400
Then I can use an electric field to propel them.

674
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:15,240
This is the reason I have to inject the oxygen into plasma...

675
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,120
...which will strip electrons from the nuclei.

676
00:51:18,240 --> 00:51:21,320
Without an electron a nucleus will have a charge of  +1.

677
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,640
Without two electrons it will have a charge of +2 etc.

678
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:32,120
The hotter the plasma is the more electrons I can pull away.

679
00:51:32,240 --> 00:51:36,000
This is what I call an ion source.

680
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:40,960
It helps us convert a neutrally charged atom into an ion with a positive charge.

681
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:45,160
Then I am taking this ion out...

682
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,960
...and I am putting it into an acceleration chamber.

683
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,920
The ions accelerate in an electric field.

684
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,120
You have to apply an electric field to propel them.

685
00:52:00,240 --> 00:52:03,800
There are two ways to do that.

686
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,480
You can build a very long accelerator...

687
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,040
...with the electrodes placed along the pipe.

688
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:16,200
Slow particles will be propelled to one tenth of the speed of light at its end.

689
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:21,520
Or you can make the particles travel in a circular path.

690
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,080
But you need a magnetic field to do that.

691
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,920
You need a large magnet like those you can see in the accelerators.

692
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:30,480
They hold the ions to their trajectory.

693
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,800
This magnet is about 4 meters in diameter.

694
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:40,040
It generates a magnetic field.

695
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,520
It makes the ions travel in a circular path.

696
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:48,320
There are also two electrodes which generate an electric field in the chamber.

697
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,200
The electric field accelerates the ions.

698
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,880
But you need to synchronize the process.

699
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,320
You need to accelerate the ion here...

700
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:00,400
...and accelerate it again half way through the circle.

701
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,080
This is the reason we want alternating voltage.

702
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,880
It is alternate and not constant.

703
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:13,160
The voltage cycles should be in sync with the movement of the ions.

704
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:18,000
Accumulating energy of the ion will make it move outwards.

705
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:24,040
Its trajectory will look like a spiral path outwards from the center.

706
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:26,560
And when the ion reaches the rim...

707
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:32,640
...two meters away from the center it will accumulate the maximum energy.

708
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:37,800
Then we should take the ion out of the chamber and send it to the target.

709
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,600
It is the operating principle of an accelerator.

710
00:53:40,720 --> 00:53:44,480
It is called an orbit accelerator or a cyclotron.

711
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:48,800
The particles travel in a circular path. Their trajectory is spiral.

712
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:53,040
This spiral path is several kilometers long.

713
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:59,400
An ion completes about a hundred circles.

714
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:04,280
And this is enough to propel it to a one tenth of the speed of light.

715
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:10,280
Then this ion can come to the atomic nucleus of uranium close enough.

716
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,120
They can fuse.

717
00:54:13,240 --> 00:54:16,280
As a result of this fusion we can add up...

718
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:21,520
...Element 92 and Element 8 to produce Element 100.

719
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:28,760
Of course, there's a chance that they won't fuse. Or some may fuse partially.

720
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:35,000
But these will be side effects and products we are not interested in.

721
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,480
And we should get rid of those...

722
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:42,840
...to see what we want to see. And we want to see Element 100.

723
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,680
When we talk about super-heavy elements...

724
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:52,800
...we should get rid of a trillion of side products.

725
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,760
A single atom and a trillion of side products.

726
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:59,040
This is the reason these experiments are so complicated.

727
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:03,440
We must ensure ultimate selectivity.

728
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:06,560
And so...

729
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,560
...this process...

730
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:15,840
...of accelerating, bombardment, and fusion...

731
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:19,520
...is the principle behind the production of super-heavy elements.

732
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,800
There is another issue with super-heavy elements.

733
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:26,320
I gave you an example of uranium.

734
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:28,640
We can find uranium in soil.

735
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:31,320
But we want artificial elements to produce super-heavy ones.

736
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,080
And they don't exist in nature.

737
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:36,600
Plutonium, curium.

738
00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:39,880
You need a very powerful reactor to synthesize those.

739
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,280
And so, you utilize both reactors and accelerators.

740
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:48,000
You want a reactor to produce a target.

741
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:53,520
You breed material for your target there.

742
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:56,320
Then you place the target into your machine.

743
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:01,120
Then you accelerate the ions to produce new elements.

744
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,680
This is what makes these experiments so complicated.

745
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:10,480
They get even more complicated when the half-life of the target is short.

746
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:17,520
On the one hand, you want more neutrons in your target.

747
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:22,400
On the other hand, the more neutrons you have the shorter its half-life is.

748
00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:25,480
We set a record.

749
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,080
I mean the element with the atomic number 117.

750
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:31,440
The target was made of berkelium.

751
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:34,760
The half-life of this isotope is 300 days long.

752
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:41,360
This is why when we prepared this experiment...

753
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:44,920
...first, we had to breed enough material.

754
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:49,480
And the reactor should have been powerful enough.

755
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:54,360
Then we had to separate the material chemically.

756
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:59,200
Then we had to bring the isotope from one hemisphere to the other one.

757
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:01,840
Then we had to install the target...

758
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,920
...and bombard it for another 300 days.

759
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,200
When we got our first results, many American colleagues said...

760
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:18,640
...that it was a tour de force.

761
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:24,560
Other isotopes had longer half-life. Working with them was easier.

762
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:29,280
This is more or less what it looks like.

763
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:33,320
Ok. I understand. Could you also explain to me in simple terms...

764
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:36,400
...what is the classical theory?

765
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:40,200
This is a very good question.

766
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:49,160
The history of nuclear physics...

767
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:53,160
...dates back...

768
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:57,720
...to March 7, 1911.

769
00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:03,320
That day Ernest Rutherford attended...

770
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:07,640
...a meeting of the Manchester Philosophical Society and said:

771
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:10,440
'I believe this is what an atom looks like.'

772
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,880
'There is a small and dense nucleus in its center.'

773
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,240
'It is positively charged.'

774
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:21,360
'And the electrons orbit it at some distance.'

775
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,360
'And they are negatively charged.'

776
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:29,360
Nobody could understand the structure of the atom before.

777
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:32,440
There are electrons which are charged negatively.

778
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:36,640
But an atom is neutral. That means there is something positively charged inside.

779
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:41,080
But how can positive and negative charges co-exist?

780
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:46,080
The opposites should attract and annihilate.

781
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:52,480
Rutherford likened the atomic structure to the solar system.

782
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:56,800
Planets orbit the Sun. But it's all about gravity in space.

783
00:58:56,920 --> 00:59:00,280
And here we deal with electromagnetic interaction.

784
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:03,440
The dense nucleus is charged positively.

785
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:07,080
And the electrons orbit it.

786
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:17,560
His concept was not immediately understood or accepted.

787
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:23,840
But as the physicists including Rutherford himself looked into the issue...

788
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:31,440
...they discovered proofs of this concept which was called a planetary model.

789
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:41,640
In fact, the nucleus is small, round, and dense.

790
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:45,600
The nucleus is incondensable.

791
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:48,440
You can't condense it.

792
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:52,240
Ions bounce off it but can't condense it.

793
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:56,280
And then, back in 1928...

794
00:59:56,840 --> 00:59:59,960
...our compatriot...

795
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:05,320
...who later became a famous American scientist, George Gamow...

796
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:12,880
...said that a nucleus is similar to a drop of liquid.

797
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:20,760
To a drop of water. Though a tiny one.

798
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:25,160
But it's denser than water by 15 orders of magnitude.

799
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:30,320
And he suggested a liquid drop nuclear model.

800
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:36,280
In fact, a nucleus has got a distinct shape. It is spherical.

801
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:40,440
It is incondensable.

802
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:48,840
I would call this a rather bold metaphor.

803
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:53,760
Because a liquid drop is a macro object.

804
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:56,880
And a nucleus is a micro object.

805
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:01,320
Macro objects are subject to Newton mechanical laws.

806
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:04,400
Micro objects are subject to Einstein laws.

807
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:11,600
And we compare a nucleus to a macro object.

808
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:19,240
But that model proved extremely efficient.

809
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:24,200
It helped us predict the discovery of atomic binding energy.

810
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:27,840
It likened particles to molecules of water.

811
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:32,720
It helped us predict the fission phenomenon.

812
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:40,440
It helped us predict some decay events.

813
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:44,120
In this way it is a classical one.

814
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:49,400
We apply a classical metaphor of a liquid drop to a nucleus.

815
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:51,360
But...

816
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,560
...a liquid drop is amorphous.

817
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:57,000
It has got no inner structure.

818
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:01,960
And later we found out that a nucleus has got an inner structure.

819
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:06,880
This inner structure is the only reason we can produce super-heavy elements.

820
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:11,880
Without it we could never produce any of them.

821
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:17,840
Because the classical theory likens a nucleus to a liquid drop...

822
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:22,520
...and gives us an exact limit. There can be no elements heavier than 100.

823
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:27,960
All the heavier ones were produced because the nucleus has a structure.

824
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:31,720
The matter has got its inner structure.

825
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:38,520
I am going to try and help you visualize this structure. Imagine a liquid drop.

826
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:43,040
And now imagine a snowflake inside this liquid drop.

827
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:46,480
The snowflake is sort of a carcass.

828
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:51,960
It may be tiny but it is still a carcass.

829
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:56,720
And when you approach the limit of nuclear stability...

830
01:02:56,840 --> 01:03:00,960
...when the repulsive forces of positively charged protons...

831
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:04,200
...equal the attraction forces...

832
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:11,560
...this tiny carcass makes a very heavy nucleus stable.

833
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:18,320
This is the fundamental base of the island of stability of super-heavy nuclei.

834
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,360
This is what the classical theory is about.

835
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:24,840
The later theory which considers the atomic structure...

836
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:29,000
...was called a microscopic theory or a quantum theory.

837
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:56,920
This is something we can call the body of evidence of the nuclear physics.

838
01:03:57,040 --> 01:04:01,920
For the last 3.000 years. Everything we know today.

839
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:06,200
Some experts say that we can go back to 6000 years.

840
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:09,080
Just imagine the potential.

841
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,880
The black squares here are...

842
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:18,240
...the nuclei of the elements which occur naturally in soil.

843
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,720
They were formed with the Earth itself...

844
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:25,760
...4.5 billion years ago.

845
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:31,840
You can follow these black squares up to lead and bismuth.

846
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,440
There are no black squares after those.

847
01:04:35,560 --> 01:04:37,720
You can see a narrow neck...

848
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:42,520
...and an area we call a peninsula.

849
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:48,880
You can see some black squares in the middle of it.

850
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,560
These are thorium and uranium.

851
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:56,440
They came into existence together with planet Earth, too.

852
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:01,280
But they decay right before our eyes.

853
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,120
Both thorium and uranium are radioactive elements.

854
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:08,800
And this is the end of it. No more black squares.

855
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:13,880
The colors turn light.

856
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:15,560
It's almost white now.

857
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:19,600
That means that the half-life of these elements is very short.

858
01:05:19,720 --> 01:05:26,120
You can see 22 grades of their half-life.

859
01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:29,480
From black to blue.

860
01:05:29,600 --> 01:05:31,480
The blue color stands for the atoms...

861
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:34,880
...with the half-life of less than one microsecond.

862
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:39,120
The black color stands for stability. Lead is the last black square.

863
01:05:39,240 --> 01:05:43,360
It is followed by the peninsula with uranium and bismuth on it.

864
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:49,480
Then we see transuranium elements which are produced in the reactors.

865
01:05:49,600 --> 01:05:52,720
These are the elements bred in the US reactors...

866
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:56,800
...which we bring here to make targets and produce super-heavy elements.

867
01:05:56,920 --> 01:06:02,080
And if you look even higher you can see a small sand bank...

868
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:07,720
...and a big island. This is the island of stability.

869
01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:10,800
The island of stability of super-heavy elements.

870
01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:15,800
This island is a concept which haunted scientists for many years.

871
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:18,240
Does it exist or not?

872
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:20,720
Yes, it does exist.

873
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:26,760
We stepped on this island and we produced six elements...

874
01:06:27,200 --> 01:06:31,040
...and 16 different nuclei or isotopes of these elements.

875
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:34,480
We probed this island in many places.

876
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:39,760
And we proved that it is in fact an island of stability.

877
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:42,880
This is what it's all about.