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UpdatedChanged2016

The periodic table ends around element 109

The core idea stands, but key numbers or details have changed.

TaughtThe periodic table trails off in the hundreds with a few unnamed, provisional elements at the end.

NowThe seventh row was completed in 2016 when nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson were named. The table now has 118 elements and no gaps.

What actually happened

Depending on when you graduated, the chart on your classroom wall stopped at a different place: 103 in the early 1960s, 109 in the 1980s, 112 in the late 1990s. The end of the table has been moving your entire life.

On 30 December 2015 IUPAC verified the discovery of elements 113, 115, 117, and 118, and the names were formalized in November 2016. Nihonium was the first element discovered in Asia, by RIKEN in Japan. Oganesson, element 118, is named for Yuri Oganessian and is one of only two elements named after a living person. These are not substances you could hold: teams produce a handful of atoms at a time in accelerators, and they exist for milliseconds. The row is now full, so the next element would open row eight, and whether the table continues in a recognizable form is an open question, since relativistic effects on electrons that near-lightspeed may break the periodicity the table is built on.

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Sources

  1. IUPAC: Naming of new elements 113, 115, 117 and 118iupac.org
  2. IUPAC: Periodic table of elementsiupac.org

Who was taught this

Still standard through 2016, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 2016 learned the earlier version.