Since element numbers are based on protons, why can’t they just add more to discover element 119, 120, etc?
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The atoms become very unstable and hard to detect. It isnt as simple as adding a proton. You need to force them to. Then when they do, they exist for a split millisecond and decay into something else. So you need to detect it in that split second of existence.
Every number you go up requires elements that are more and more unstable and hard to make. So it gets very expensive and very tedious just to have the materials.
Then you need a giant collider device running 24 7 for months at a time hoping that eventually a new element forms and that when it does, your machine can detect it in the split second it exists. Then you need to proce it actually existed.
It really isnt that easy to explain just via text and basic wording.
There was a good video put out on this recently called “the man who tried to fake an element”. They go through the element discovery race that took place through the 70s-90s and explain the process of the whole thing and why it isnt that easy and why it has reached the point of not really being doable.
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