RE5 Unit 10B · ELEMENT HUNTERS (元素猎人)

Reading 10B · ELEMENT HUNTERS (元素猎人)

从西博格到奥加涅相，当代物理学家如何强力粉碎原子核、攻坚合成超重元素周期表？

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All the elements found in nature, the different kinds of atoms, were found long ago.

宇宙中存在的一切事物——从夜空中闪耀的群星，到你眼前的手机屏幕，再到你体内数以万亿计的细胞——均是由90多种自然界天然存在的化学元素构成的。氢和氦诞生于宇宙大爆炸初期的炼金洪炉；而碳、氧、黄金和铁等更重的元素，则是在恒星内部剧烈的核聚变反应中锻造，并在超新星大爆炸的绚烂天体浩劫中抛洒遍及全宇宙。

To find a new one these days, you need to create it.

Everything you know and love on Earth and everything you don't is built of elements,

the different types of atoms.

Most of them are billions of years old, scattered into space by the Big Bang or by exploding stars.

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to bacteria, president or mouse.

由俄国化学家德米特里·门捷列夫于1869年首创的元素周期表，按照原子序数（即原子核内的质子数）递增的规律井然有序地排列着万物。排在榜首的是仅有1个质子的氢元素；而排在天然元素序列终点的则是拥有92个质子的铀元素。数十年来，科学界普遍坚信铀元素便是自然界化学元素的绝对终极疆界。然而到了20世纪40年代，一场大胆的现代科学征途拉开序幕：人类能否亲手合成自然界从未存在过的全新人造元素？

In the late 1800s, the Russian chemist and inventor Dimitri Mendeleev tried to make sense

of Earth's elements, grouping them by mass, the scientific term for weight,

and other attributes in his periodic table of the elements.

Later, scientists connected the order of elements in the periodic table to the structure of atoms.

Each element got a number, its atomic number, the number of protons in its atomic nucleus.

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Element 92.

人造超铀元素的开山鼻祖是美国加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的化学家格伦·西博格。在第二次世界大战期间的绝密军工研发中，西博格及其团队利用回旋回旋加速器，以亚原子粒子轰击铀靶。1940年，他们成功合成了94号元素——钚（Plutonium），该元素随后在原子能与核武器领域发挥了举足轻重的作用。西博格在此后漫长的科研生涯中，又主导或共同发现了包括镅、锔、锫在内的9种崭新人造超铀元素。

They had filled in every gap Mendeleev had left in his table, but they weren't finished.

Beyond Uranium lay a world of possibilities, elements too radioactive and unstable to have

survived billions of years. To explore that world, you have to create it first.

The first steps of creation not only extended the periodic table,

but played a fateful role in world history.

It was 1940, the year after World War II began, and US scientists led the race to create new elements.

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The next year, Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues at the same university produced Element 94, Plutonium.

冷战时期，追寻超重元素的科研角逐演变为美苏两大超级大国之间赌注极高的高精尖科技博弈。当西博格团队在伯克利日以继夜攻坚时，苏联核物理学领军人物格奥尔基·弗廖罗夫在莫斯科以北的杜布纳建立了联合核子研究所。两大顶尖实验室为了争夺104、105和106号元素的发现权与命名荣誉展开了白热化的龙争虎斗，引发了长达数十年的国际科学界优先权争端。

Seaborg was promptly recruited to the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb for the US military.

The intensified level of nuclear research in the United States did not go unnoticed by the world's

other superpower at the time, the Soviet Union.

Georgie Flaerov was a prominent physicist who had helped launch that country's nuclear weapons research.

Early in World War II, Flaerov had noticed that the flow of articles about radioactive elements

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This heightened secrecy led him to suspect that they were building atomic bombs,

制造超重元素堪称现代物理学中最艰难的工程壮举之一。由于所有带正电荷的质子都会通过静电库仑力相互剧烈排斥，强行将两个原子核融为一体需要倾注无可匹敌的巨大动能。科学家借助庞大的重离子加速器，以接近光速10%的极高速度发射诸如钙-48等富含中子的轻原子束流，猛烈轰击涂布有锔或锎等重锕系元素的靶盘。

and in April 1942, he wrote to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin explaining his fears.

Flaerov's suspicions were confirmed, and Stalin asked Russian physicists to build a bomb too.

For his part in the war effort, Flaerov was rewarded with a car, a house,

and, most significantly, a laboratory in the town of Dubna, north of Moscow.

There, Flaerov focused his attention on the hunt for new elements.

His American counterpart, Glenn Seaborg, returned to Berkeley after helping to engineer the bomb

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He continued to make new elements with less fateful applications,

实现核聚变融合的成功概率低到令人难以置信。数月之间，数以万亿计的高速撞击粒子每秒疯狂轰击靶材，但绝大多数对撞均以粒子弹开或原子核碎裂告终。平均而言，往往每隔数周甚至数月，才能极其侥幸地诞生一颗孤零零的超重元素原子。精密的高速磁谱仪必须在微秒级时间内将这颗孤立的新原子从喧嚣的海量束流中剥离出来，并将其精准导入硅探测器。

smoke detectors, for instance, or no applications at all.

By 1955, his team had gotten as far as Element 101. He named it Mendeleevium.

For a time, it seemed Mendeleev's table might end there with his namesake.

The protons in an atomic nucleus are always trying to tear it apart.

Their positive electric charges repel one another.

Neutrons, electrically neutral particles that outnumber the protons, help bind the nucleus

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as the size of the nucleus increases. So there has to be a final box on the periodic table,

一旦合成，这些超重核庞然大物往往只是稍纵即逝的宇宙幽灵。由于原子核内过度拥挤着大量质子，它们通过辐射阿尔法粒子或自发裂变，在极短时间内便分崩离析。110号以后的元素往往仅能存活几毫秒甚至几微秒，便迅速衰变为更轻的子代核素。然而，就在这转瞬即逝的一刹那，探测器便能清晰捕捉并记录下其独特的放射性衰变指纹，雄辩地证明该新元素曾在世界上真实存在过。

a maximum size beyond which an atom won't be stable even for an instant.

With Mendeleevium, which has a half-life of 51.5 days, researchers seem to be getting close

to the final box. Beyond Mendeleevium.

The Berkeley team continued its research regardless, rivaled by Fleuroff's team in Dubna.

From 1965 to 1974, Berkeley claimed to have produced Elements 102 to 106.

But so did the Dubna Lab. Although those short-lived elements died within hours,

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the tense disputes over who made them first were fueled by the competitive atmosphere of

理论核物理学家预言，在更深邃的超重元素秘境中，深藏着一片被称为“稳定岛（Island of Stability）”的神秘圣境。根据原子核壳层模型理论，当原子核拥有特定“幻数”的质子（如114、120或126）与中子（如184）时，其内部核子将排列成极其稳固的闭壳几何构型，从而可能使其半衰期大幅延长至数小时、数天乃至数百万年之久。成功登陆这座神奇稳定岛的彼岸，至今仍是现代核化学界孜孜以求的终极圣杯。

the Cold War. In the end, a spirit of compromise prevailed. Element 105 was named Dubnium,

and Element 106 seborium. Meanwhile, theorists had given a new purpose to the quest for elements.

They calculated that a very large nucleus might be surprisingly stable if it had magic numbers of

protons and neutrons. That insight, if correct, would change everything. It would mean that there

could be an island of stability where extremely heavy elements might last minutes, weeks, or even

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Yuri Oganesian joined Fleuroff's lab in Dubna. The island of stability had captured his imagination.

近几十年来，全球超重元素探索无可争议的领军人是俄罗斯核物理学家尤里·奥加涅相。在与美国劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室同侪的长期密切合作下，奥加涅相团队先后攻克合成了113号至118号元素，完满填补了元素周期表的第七周期。2016年，国际纯粹与应用化学联合会（IUPAC）正式将118号元素命名为“气奥（Oganesson，符号Og）”，使奥加涅相先生成为了人类历史上第二位在世时即获冠名化学元素的泰斗级科学家。

However, reaching it seemed to him an impossible task at that point. The Berkeley and Dubna labs

had gotten only as far as Element 106 by shooting light atoms against heavy ones,

with such force that they joined to create a single super-heavy nucleus. But beyond 106,

the collisions were so energetic that they were ripping the new nucleus apart before it even formed.

To overcome this problem, Oganesian proposed that shooting slightly heavier atoms at lighter targets

💡 审辩式思维 (Critical Thinking: Scientific Milestones)

1. Which technological breakthrough has had the greatest positive versus negative impact on humanity?

对比火药、石油、电能与青霉素，哪一项科技进步为人类创造了最大福祉，哪一项带来了最严峻的隐患？

思维指引 (Sample Perspective):
• 正面典范（电能与青霉素）：电能彻底打破了昼夜极限，驱动现代工业与信息网络；抗生素将人类平均寿命从40岁翻倍提高至80岁以上。
• 负面反思（火药与石油）：火药让杀伤武器迭代升级，造成数千万生灵涂炭；化石燃料虽推动了工业化，却引发了全球气候变暖与不可逆的生态危机。

2. Why do scientists invest decades of effort into creating superheavy elements that only last milliseconds?

既然118号等超重元素只能存活几毫秒且无法用于工业制造，这种纯基础科学探索的根本价值何在？

思维指引 (Sample Perspective):
• 探究物质终极规律：它检验了量子力学与强相互作用力在极端质量极限下的数学预言，验证原子核“稳定岛”假说；科学史上无数划时代的应用（如相对论之于GPS、量子力学之于半导体），起初均源自纯粹的好奇心探险。

📝 课文理解深度练习 (Comprehension & Skills)

Reading Comprehension: Multiple Choice (P.211) Reading Comprehension: The Scientific Race (P.212) Reading Skill: Cold War Nuclear Synthesis (P.213)

预习练习得分: 0 / 20 题

Reading Comprehension Part A: Multiple Choice (P.211)

READING COMPREHENSION · MAIN IDEA

1. What is the main idea of the reading passage?

READING COMPREHENSION · INFERENCE

2. What made Glenn Seaborg's synthesis of plutonium in 1940 so historically significant?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

3. Why does fusing two atomic nuclei together require colossal kinetic energy?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

4. How often is a single atom of a superheavy element produced during cyclotron collision experiments?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

5. What happens to superheavy elements beyond element 110 almost immediately after they are formed?

READING COMPREHENSION · VOCABULARY

6. In nuclear physics, what is the 'island of stability'?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

7. What rare distinction was bestowed upon Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian in 2016?

Reading Comprehension Part B: The Superheavy Discovery Race (P.212)