(May 20, 2012 at 1:23 am)Chuck Wrote: Actually, the number of possible tranisent elements is unlimited, but number of stable elements is limited by how many protons and neutron can stably clump together without rapidly disintegrating through radio active decay. So far we find any nucleus with more than 105 protons seem to decay very quickly, limiting stable elements to around 100. But there are theories that suggest much higher specific number of proton and neutron can achieve one of a number of possible, but hitherto unobserved, stable configurations in so called islands of stability far off the high end of the periodic table.
So I wouldn't say stable yet unknown element is entirely improbable.
The only problem is that most of those theories were all just made up for sci fi.
I had low expectations for the movie too, but for some reason I actually enjoyed it.
