Later, a little over ten years ago, the physicists discovered an error. More precise calculation showed that the electron would only crash down on a nucleus if its charge were about 150 or so. See how bright the prospects of completing the Big House!

   How many new elements, how many unexpected discoveries await chemists! Over forty future inhabitants await permission to move into the house founded by Mendeleyev. Alas, today this is no more than a dream, an alluring but unrealizable fancy. In calculating the atomic number of the last element scientists had omitted something very important. Not that they forgot about it - they just wanted to see what would be if. . .

   If there were no radioactivity. If nuclei with very large charges were as stable as those of the numerous elements existing on the Earth. Radioactivity is the absolute ruler of the elements heavier than bismuth. But it deals out long lifetimes to some and allows others to live only a few instants.

   The hundred and fourth element, kurchatovium, has a half-life of only three-tenths of a second. And what about the hundred and fifth, and the hundred and sixth? Their half-lives are in all probability still shorter. And not far off we come to the deadline where the nucleus of the new element breaks up almost before it is born. We would be lucky to get as far as the hundred and tenth.

  Nature itself and its strict physical laws are to blame for the Mendeleyev Table being incomplete. Still, how many a time has man conquered nature?

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