Prop for Friday, March 27

PPX: Review This Prop!

Stu Says: This prop has an atomic weight between 89 and 103.

The end of this prop can be verified with the Michigan Tech staff/faculty newsletter (http://www.admin.mtu.edu/urel/ttoday/) or at http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~donald/

IPO: EAFFIN

"Will Michigan Tech physicists discover the electron affinities for the light actinides by the end of the summer?"

The electron affinity of a particular element measures the energy released when the charge of a single atom of that element becomes more negative by the measure of a single electron. While the calculation of this value proved easy for alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as for the chalcogens and the halogens, it has proved exceedingly difficult for the elements in the lanthanides and actinides. However, researchers at Michigan Tech recently announced that they have managed to predict the electron affinity for the lanthanides, and claim they will produce similar predictions for the elements actinum through plutonium sometime this summer.

This prop will pay POP$100 if the Michigan Tech team releases predictions for the electron affinities of the elements actinum (89) through plutonium (94) by August 31st, 2009.

3 Comments

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frostyfam

03/26/09 at 10:45 am

Technically, the last day of summer is September 20th or thereabouts. (Too lazy to look it up)

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Stuart Fox

03/27/09 at 1:13 pm

@ frostyfam- The prop is referring to the academic summer, not the actual weather season. The scientists said that they would get it done by the middle of the summer, but I decided to be a sport and give them until the beginning of Michigan Tech's Fall 2009 classes on August 31st. As anyone who has ever taught at a college knows, research seriously slows down once classes start up again.

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hallmike

04/03/09 at 10:03 am

Strange - this one has been open for a week now and it hasn't moved at all.