Question

How many known elements are there now?

Asked by: Yekaterina

 Answer

As of now there are 115 known elements, although those 115 are not in sequence.

Elements 1 to 112, Hydrogen to Ununbium are known, with Ununbium only been discovered in 1996. Elements 114, 116 and 118 have also been discovered more recently, bringing the total to 115 known elements.

Note that Elements 113,115 and 117 have not yet been discovered.

Also note that the elements such as 118(Ununoctium)are very unstable, although Ununoctium technically should be a noble gas and thus stable, it has an incredibly short life and will decay to element 116 in a fraction of a second.

It has been theorized that elements with atomic numbers approaching 125 will be stable at normal conditions and could be used for various industrial purposes.

Answered by: David Balson, Ph.D., String Theorist, PPARC, United Kingdom

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