The quest to discover new superheavy elements has in the past been analogized to a race. Since the discovery of berkelium, in 1946, scientists from various laboratories around the world have competed, and at times collaborated, to discover new elements, leading to a string of discoveries of element 97 up to element 118. This race, however, has slowed to a halt after the most recent discovery, element 117, tennessine, in 2009. In 2017, the director of Riken, Dr. Hideto En’yo, not only announced that the search for element 119 had begun, but that elements 119 and 120 would be discovered within 5 years. Dear reader, if you are capable of performing basic arithmetic mathematics, which I believe you are capable of since you are a university student, you might notice that 5 years after 2017 is the year 2022. Also, if you the reader have checked the date recently, you may notice that we are currently in the year 2024. That is, in fact, 2 years after 2022. Clearly, the current approach to discovering new elements isn’t working, and Dr. Hideto En’yo has been lying to us all. Now, dear reader, you might be wondering what exactly is the process of discovering new elements. In a nutshell (not literally), researchers take one heavy element, such as berkelium, and then accelerate particles of another element, such as calcium, to bombard the first heavy element (this was how tennessine was discovered). With enough tries, and luck, this might lead to the creation of a new element. Sounds simple enough, right? At this point, dear reader, you might be wondering how exactly they accelerate these particles. Magnets are used to both steer the particles in a circular trajectory and accelerate them up to speed. Herein lies the problem. Magnets? What do you mean they use magnets to accelerate particles? By magnets, you mean those things people put on their refrigerators? Like fridge magnets? This was never going to work, they have played us for absolute fools, managing to convince us, the common person, to put our faith in them. Obviously, this method would never work, and the particle physicists of our time do not know what they’re doing. Is all hope lost? Will we never discover element 119? Fortunately, I have not just brought to you, the reader, the problem, but also the solution to this very problem. If magnets can’t accelerate particles up to speed, what can? Evidently, a lot of things (try lifting the weights in the Cohon Fitness Center using fridge magnets, then lift that weight yourself). The best candidate for a viable method, however, are track athletes. Imagine for a moment two athletes, one holding a particle of einsteinium, element 99, and a particle of calcium, then have these two athletes sprint into each other at full speed. Not only would this finally allow the particles to move at sufficient speed, but it would ensure that the particles actually collide with each other, as two athletes colliding is much more probable than hoping two unimaginably tiny particles can be steered into each other using magnets. Dear reader, we have plotted our course for the future. I have already sent my proposal to all of the scientists currently working on discovering element 119 (my editor has informed me that I have left out one scientist in particular, but I swear that was an accident). Dear reader, if you begin training now, you might just be able to become one of the athletes involved in the groundbreaking discovery of element 119. Another benefit that hasn’t yet been mentioned is that most likely, the new element would be named after an athlete, someone people care about, instead of some lousy so-called scientist. This of course means that if you train enough, you might be said athlete and receive naming rights. For reference, you would have to be able to run at speeds of 30 million meters per second, which admittedly is difficult but is fully within the realms of human possibility. Good luck, dear reader, and see you on the periodic table.
