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

The answer is yes and no. Many of the “transuranium” elements are basically more or less artificiality made in nuclear laboratories and only last for an incredibly small amount of time and then decay. It’s not like we are building the elements and then mass producing them and building stuff out of them. They exist maybe theoretically more than anything, but they have been made and have been named.

This wikipedia article goes into a lot of detail about them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transuranium_element