Have you ever thought about the most expensive item you own? Or the most expensive thing in the world? or the universe? According to some CERN scientists, antimatter is the most expensive material on the planet today. And the reason it is so expensive is because it requires a large amount of energy to produce it. You read it right! Antimatter can be produced.
The evil twin of matter particles was first predicted by the brilliant Paul Dirac, and its equation is so rare that no known trace of an antimatter particle has been known or found since the Big Bang. Experimenters at CERN are constantly trying to produce signatures of matter-anthomatismpairs in less than a fraction of a second in a one-in-a-million collision.
The cost of a gram of antimatter particles is almost unimaginable. However, this article is not about antimatter. However, we will discuss the most expensive synthetic element that may be available. And here isCalifornio-252.Californium-252 is a radioactive isotope of the element California, first synthesized in 1950 at the University of California, Berkeley.
It is a synthetic element, meaning it does not occur naturally on Earth and must be created in a laboratory. It is one of the most expensive materials in the world and is valued for its unique properties and important applications.position in the periodic tableCalifornium occurs immediately after curium (Cm) in the periodic table and has the atomic number 98.
Like the other actinide elements, californium is highly radioactive and unstable, with a relatively short half-life of about 2.6 years. All elements of the actinide series are radioactive and have similar chemical properties due to the presence of the same number of electrons in their outer shell. Cf-252 is classified as a transuranic element, meaning it has an atomic numberhigher than uranium (92).Physical and Chemical Properties