Okay, so I understand that the number of protons in an atom defines the element. But why are there only 118 of them? Can’t we keep on adding protons to an atom to create new elements?

Question

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses!

In: 3337

Answer 1

Protons are all positively charged, so they repel each other. In atomic nuclei, there’s a force called “strong force” which holds them together, and for most atoms that force is altogether strong enough that they’re stable that way. The strong force has a very short range, while the electromagnetic repulsion doesn’t. So when a nucleus is sufficiently big, the nucleons on one side of it don’t even contribute to holding the nucleons on the other side of it together, but protons on opposite sides still repel each other.

It’d also maybe help with adding more protons to a nucleus if there was a way of doing it gently. But the only way humans have for now of putting nuclei together is essentially bombarding one kind of nuclei with another and having some not miss by sheer number, resulting in fusion (a nucleus is very small even compared to the full size of the atom with its electrons.) Fast bombardment is necessary because the repulsion would probably deflect slower nuclei. It’s not like we have a femtoscopic vise and tweezers to keep sticking more nucleons onto an immobilized nucleus.