In the final chapter of his book, Kean talks about the fact that francium is very rare. The most anyone has every acquired is ten thousand atoms and it only lasted for twenty minutes. If francium is rare, then trying to find astatine is like finding a specific car in a parking garage within a hundred million parking garages and throughout all of the garages the car you are looking for is the only one there. Besides, if you did manage to find astatine, you would die because of the exposure to the strong radiation. The author also mentions what are called "magic elements" that were found by Maria Goeppert-Mayer that include elements 2, 8, 20, 28, etc. These elements are extra stable.
The author also mentions weird fact that uranium is more stable that astatine or francium although it's heavier. Kean said that the fact that element 114 is so stable that elements 112 and 116 get calmed just from being close to element 114. Scientists called this the "island of stability" and they weren't really sure why. Kean goes on to talk about the future of the periodic table. Many people think that the periodic table will end at element 137 since alpha is 1/137 and Einstein's theory of relativity says that nothing can travel faster than light, so theoretically any elements beyond 137 will be physically impossible. There is still some doubt though since alpha could be growing because of Oklo, so you never know.
This chapter was a good way to end the book because it focuses so much on the periodic table. The book in general was very good, at times confusing, but that's because I have so much to learn in my AP journey. I really enjoyed reading about the girl power throughout the book and I didn't really like the patriarchal side of science. It was especially entertaining reading about the scandals of science. I never knew that politics could influence science so much. Peace and love, peeps!
-A
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