The Periodic Discovery Screening Tool
Use the simplified Start → Stop → Reset → Save → Download sequence. The tool runs a default public demonstration route, visually shows the nuclei being combined, enforces the Z=119–126 candidate-isotope discovery window inside the Z=137 Dirac-limit boundary, and updates the live findings document on the page.
Ready to start
The run sequence visualizes how the proposed nuclei combine, form an excited compound nucleus, and resolve into a candidate isotope.
Organize for deeper review
This idea needs a structured reaction path, literature cross-checking, and experimental realism before it would be worth expert review.
Scientific validation checklist
Predicted alpha-decay chain
Live Findings Document
The findings document updates on the page. It explains route validation, sub-scores, alpha-decay review chain, NuDat review steps, falsification conditions, and the theoretical lab environment. It never discusses hidden implementation details.
Highlighting the frontier of the periodic table
New elements are not only additions to a chart. They test nuclear theory at the edge of confirmed matter, help scientists study shell effects and stability, and deepen our understanding of how very heavy nuclei behave. This public demo now limits usable candidate isotopes to Z=119–126, inside the Z=137 Dirac-limit ceiling.
Element 118 is the confirmed frontier
Oganesson, atomic number 118, is the heaviest confirmed element. That makes 119 and 120 the most visible next targets for extending the table into an eighth period.
Why 119 and 120 matter
These candidates sit at the doorway to a new period. Even a tiny number of verified decay-chain events could reshape how chemists and nuclear physicists think about the verified edge of the table.
Island of stability question
One of the most important open questions is whether shell effects may create relatively longer-lived superheavy nuclei. Discovery work helps test that possibility.
Scientific data that frames the search
This website presents concise, public-facing context so visitors understand what makes an element hypothesis plausible, difficult, or likely to fail under experimental scrutiny.
Key scientific signals
| Signal | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Charge balance | The target and projectile proton counts must add up to the candidate element’s atomic number. |
| Mass balance | The total mass number must support a credible compound nucleus and a realistic neutron-evaporation path. |
| Decay chains | New-element claims typically rely on short sequences of correlated decays matched against known daughter behavior. |
| Half-life window | The isotope must live long enough to leave a measurable signal, even if only for milliseconds. |
| Shell effects | Magic or near-magic proton and neutron numbers may improve survival odds in very heavy nuclei. |
| Production probability | Cross sections can be extraordinarily small, which is why new elements are so difficult to produce and confirm. |
Reference facts for visitors
- The currently confirmed periodic table extends through element 118.
- This public screening package enforces an active candidate-isotope discovery window of Z=119–Z126, bounded by the stricter public-facing Dirac ceiling of Z=137. Anything outside the active isotope window is blocked from the usable route pool.
- Temporary systematic names and symbols are used before a discovery claim is formally validated and named.
- Superheavy discovery work often uses fusion-evaporation reactions: a heavy target nucleus is struck by a lighter projectile beam to form an excited compound nucleus.
- That excited nucleus can cool by ejecting one or more neutrons, leaving a candidate isotope.
- Formal recognition requires more than prediction: it requires reproducible, high-quality evidence that stands up to international review.
Institutions pushing the frontier
New-element work is international and facility-dependent. The projects below represent major centers and collaborations involved in superheavy-element or adjacent rare-isotope research.
RIKEN Nishina Center (Japan)
RIKEN has invested in upgraded superheavy-element research infrastructure, including separator capability aimed at new superheavy synthesis. It is widely viewed as one of the most visible efforts targeting element 119.
JINR SHE Factory (Dubna)
The Superheavy Element Factory at JINR supports high-intensity heavy-ion research aimed at the synthesis and study of very heavy nuclei, including long-term ambitions for elements 119 and 120.
GSI / FAIR (Germany)
GSI and the FAIR research environment remain important to heavy-ion physics and future superheavy studies, including work that supports the wider search for extreme nuclei.
FRIB (United States)
FRIB is a leading rare-isotope facility. While its primary mission is broader than element 119 or 120 alone, it contributes essential data, isotope discoveries, and nuclear-structure insight relevant to frontier element science.
ORNL / UTK collaborations
Oak Ridge and university collaborators have participated in research aimed at the synthesis of new superheavy elements and the design of detection systems needed to identify them.
GANIL / SPIRAL2 (France)
French accelerator development also contributes to the wider heavy-ion landscape, including capabilities relevant to beams used in superheavy-element research planning.
How the discovery system works
The website explains the system openly at the scientific-method level. It does not discuss hidden implementation details. Visitors can see the reasoning path from hypothesis to screening outcome, including route validation, sub-scores, predicted daughter products, and falsification rules.
1. Define the candidate
Choose a proton count and neutron count. This determines the identity of the proposed element and isotope.
2. Propose a fusion route
Specify a target nucleus and a projectile beam that, when combined, could theoretically form the candidate after neutron evaporation.
3. Validate the route
The system checks proton balance, compound mass, neutron evaporation range, the Z=119–Z126 candidate-isotope window, the Z=137 Dirac ceiling, and whether invalid routes should be blocked from the public run pool.
4. Compare with stability clues
The screening considers shell proximity, neutron-to-proton balance, binding-energy behavior, and a simple fissility view to estimate how strained the nucleus may be.
5. Think like an experimentalist
The system generates an alpha-decay review chain, flags NuDat comparison needs, and separates screening confidence from actual experimental proof.
6. Write the findings plainly
The final findings document explains the result in plain language, tells the user what the proposed pathway means, and outlines the type of laboratory environment theoretically needed to test it.
Check nuclear data with NuDat 3
Use NuDat 3 from the National Nuclear Data Center to compare known nuclides, decay modes, half-lives, levels, gamma data, and other nuclear-structure information.
NuDat 3 reference check
After running the tool, compare the candidate isotope and expected daughter products against known nuclear data.
What to compare
- Known isotopes near the proposed candidate.
- Expected daughter nuclei after each alpha-decay step.
- Half-life windows, decay modes, and competing spontaneous-fission risk.
- Whether the route conflicts with evaluated nuclear data.
- Whether similar target-projectile combinations have already been attempted in the literature.
Screening Archive
Saved and downloaded discoveries are stored locally in this browser. Re-download previous findings from this archive.
Marcus Perkins — veteran, independent learner, and STEM-focused creator
Marcus Perkins is a U.S. Navy Veteran and lifelong independent learner. With only a high school education, he has continued studying in his spare time, building his understanding through curiosity, discipline, and a steady interest in nature, mathematics, science, and how STEM fields intersect.
A short creator story
Marcus Perkins brings a practical, hands-on background shaped by service in the U.S. Navy and years of self-directed learning. His military experience strengthened his respect for systems, discipline, precision, and accountability. Those same traits carried into his personal studies and creative work.
Although his formal education stopped at the high school level, he never stopped learning. In his spare time, he studies ideas across science, nature, mathematics, technology, and problem-solving, using curiosity as the engine for continued growth.
Learning outside the classroom
This project reflects the path of someone who keeps learning without waiting for permission. Marcus studies STEM-related subjects independently, asks questions, compares patterns, and looks for connections between fields that are usually treated separately.
The focus is not on claiming credentials. The focus is on disciplined curiosity: asking better questions, testing ideas carefully, and building tools that make complex theories easier to think through.
Nature, STEM, and intersectional thinking
Marcus is especially interested in how nature expresses structure: symmetry, growth, cycles, balance, decay, force, energy, and transformation. Those ideas appear across biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering.
The Periodic Discovery Tool grew from that interest in structured scientific questioning. The public site now focuses on the tool experience: organized routes, clear validation checks, plain-language reports, and scientific caution.
How the public tool evolved
Organizing complex scientific questions
The starting point was a need to turn abstract element-hypothesis thinking into a workflow ordinary visitors could follow through a clear review flow.
Turning theory into a public route screen
The public tool narrows the experience to visible inputs and checks: target nucleus, projectile beam, compound nucleus, neutron evaporation, and candidate isotope.
Publishing a clean public workflow
The static demo shows the screening result, the scientific checklist, and the falsification workflow.
Presenting the tool without overclaiming
The public page presents a hypothesis-screening environment, not a discovery claim, and keeps the evidence standard visible at every stage.
Guiding philosophy
Patterns can inspire discovery, but evidence must decide it. The purpose of the site is to support organized scientific thinking, not unsupported claims. The tool keeps the scientific method at the center by focusing on hypothesis testing, visual discovery paths, falsification, and plain-language explanation.
Contact the creator
Use the form below to send questions, collaboration inquiries, or feedback about the public scientific framework.
What this website is designed to do
- Help users organize a new element theory.
- Promote scientific-method thinking.
- Show which nuclei are being combined in the proposed pathway.
- Explain, in plain language, what the candidate result means.
- Point visitors toward the international scientific context of discovery.
To personalize the contact flow, replace the default contact email before publishing the site.