Thursday, April 7, 2011

Chemical Elements Poems 7: Fourteen Atoms, Twenty Seconds


It is out there, apparently
if just for seconds at a time.
All of our accelerators' prime
technicians have contrived
fourteen atoms worth
to study.

Lucky number one-thirteen
in the lucky thirteenth group.
From a high energy soup
of californium and neptunium
it forms
before it will decay.

Perhaps one day
they'll name it,
Japonium or Rikenium,
Becquelerium.
Sic transit gloria,
twenty seconds worth of atom.

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