What it takes to make a new element
Yuri Oganessian tells us how nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson were made
The route to elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 started in Soviet Russia had detours to Tennessee and Japan. We talk to the international team behind the discoveries and discover how ‘cold fusion’ gave way to hot fusion to produce the super-heavy nuclei required. The new elements raise questions vital to the future: could this be the end of periodicity, and thus the periodic table, as we know it?