The rare reverse-Saddam.

After reading I realised that this proposal isn't a single new element for all neutron stars, but a separate new entry on the table for every individual neutron star in existence, unless there are two that happen to have the exact same number of protons which is unlikely. Sounds good to me

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that no physics problem is complete unless some major component of reality is excluded to simplify the numbers."

I'll save this quote for my students. Amazing.

I highly suggest reading the entire article. That shit is pure comedy gold. Here are some highlights:

IUPAC currently recognises 118 chemical elements. The last twenty have half-lives shorter than Australian prime ministers, and are of equally limited utility to science.

Instead, we have assumed that Rex is comprised of a uniform nucleon fluid, with protons, neutrons and electrons in an idealised 1:8:1 ratio.7 This assumption will have to stand until cosmic-scale mass spectrometers can be developed.

Assuming a periodic table in which each element is represented by a 1 cm by 2.5 cm rectangle, 40 rows of 32 elements will take up one meter of space. At this scale, a periodic table incorporating element 1056 would need to be 7.82 × 1052 meters long. This is problematic, because 7.82 × 1052 meters is about 1037 lightyears, and the universe is currently estimated span a mere 93 billion lightyears. As such, the new periodic table would be a quadrillion times larger than the observable universe.

With the admin out of the way, it is now time to speculate about the chemical properties of the new element. At first, this might seem like your dentist asking you if you’re free at 3:15 on a Thursday afternoon in 2057, but the periodic table is more organised than your calendar.

Being in group 10, we might expect element 1056 to predominantly exhibit 2+ and 4+ oxidation states, and to participate in carbon-carbon cross- coupling reactions. This is unlikely however, because astronomical observations of neutron stars indicate that they do not behave like conventional atoms.

To appropriately study this exciting new branch of astrochemistry the authors have formed a new research institute the Centre for Unstable Neutron Transient Structures (CUNTS). This new institute comprises of two research groups the Baryonic Investigation Group (aka BIG CUNTS) and the Baryonic And Dark Matter Focus (aka BADMF CUNTS). We’re very proud that the exceptional nature of this research group is already being recognised with Amnesty International awarding CUNTS the 2024 Most Inappropriate and Offensive Acronym Award.While pleased to receive international recognition we have not been able to identify any offensive acronym usage and have invited Amnesty International to come and view our Award of Registered Sociopaths Equity (ARSE).

To experimentally verify this hypothesis, we proposed to send chemists to RX J1856.5−3754, but the ARC rejected our grant.

Finally, we considered the nuclear stability of our new element. Rex is radioactive in the literal sense because it emits radio waves.

We hope this paper will prompt someone to go to RX J1856.5−3754 and count its protons, so we can confirm exactly which element it is.

We thank the management of the Alien-Life Molestation Array (ALMA) for allowing us to piss around with their telescopes, while they were having lunch.

That shit almost made me piss myself from laughing.

Are they elements? 🤨

Personally, I think it's high time we went back to just 4 of 'em. Earth, Wind, Water, Fire. It's so much easier to remember them all.

Apparently, I am a top. Link to a quiz

(not to scale) is my favorite part

Do they have protons or only neutrons? because if there are no protons then it is technically just neutronium and not an element,

If they do have protons, then it is safe to assume it is a ridiculous number like 10^40. in which case I would count it as an element. And given how unlikely is for 2 neutron stars to share the number of protons, then every single neutron star is its own element,

And also, because they do not react with other atom, and if 2 collide then they merge their nucleus, we can agree that they are non reactive, and therefore we can consider them noble gasses...

Wait, are they gas?

YES, they are, if there is a single atom floating in space I think that counts as a gas

A representation of a binuclear compound of element 10^(56) with an average bond length of 100 quintillion angstroms.

Okay that was funny.

Astronomical levels of snark

https://xkcd.com/1162/

Okay this is good

Hum... The width of each row increases exponentially with their number.

It's probably just some ~1m away from the small elements. At least on the vertical.

Shouldn't they be element 0 as they dont have any protons?

No, seriously, stuff like electron metal and strange matter.

@janus2 yes, put them in there. also we need to include every single isotope out there.

Probably This Table in Future will use circles instead of squares. Where in the middle circle are the Hydrogen and Helium, next layer has next atoms that are on the 2nd layer, etc.

If we were to expand the periodic table to include them. would the poster fit within the planet? solar system?universe?