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I read an article saying an Israeli scientist had discovered the heaviest nucleus with 122 protons and 170 neutrons, and found it in a sample of purified thorium, and I would like to know if there are any laws of physics that put a constraint on the size limit of atom? (By size, I mean the maximum number of protons and neutrons held together by nuclear force, so that pretty much rules out neutron star and the likes.)

Curious Fish
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user6760
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    Duplicate How massive can an atom get? – Farcher Jan 24 '19 at 11:35
  • In thorium? I'm sceptical. – PM 2Ring Jan 24 '19 at 11:49
  • Can you link to the article? I'm also curious about the details. – probably_someone Jan 24 '19 at 14:04
  • @probably_someone here is the [link](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926661-200-hunting-the-biggest-atoms-in-the-universe/} – user6760 Jan 24 '19 at 15:46
  • @user6760 One of the authors on that paper (R.V. Gentry) is from Earth Science Associates, an organization that advocates that the Earth was created in six literal days by God, despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary. That's a pretty big red flag. – probably_someone Jan 24 '19 at 15:56
  • @user6760 Reading more into the paper, they calculate the natural abunadance of this "new element" to be around 1 part per trillion. Meanwhile, there are 7 trace elements which, according to them, "could potentially give rise to spectrally interfering molecular species," whose concentrations are not well-determined below 0.1 ppm (which is 100,000 parts per trillion). If their estimate for just one of the concentrations of these trace elements is inaccurate, then their result just becomes a background fluctuation, and that's assuming they did their statistics correctly. – probably_someone Jan 24 '19 at 16:17

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