Did Bob Lazar really discover Element 115?

If you believe the Russians discovered element 115 before the United States with all it crazy hidden technology advances and secrets going on and still going on today then you got to be kidding me.

originally posted by: tc2290

originally posted by: Box of Rain

originally posted by: Starhooker
Did he identify 115 before or after the Russian s?
I find him 80% believable

The possibility of Element 115 existing (along withe several other yet-unconfirmed elements at the time) was EXPECTED for decades by science to exist before Lazar. Lazar was NOT (not by a longshot) the first person to publicly talk about element 115.

Many science textbooks prior to Lazar making his claim had a placeholder in the periodic table for element 115. All Lazar needed to do was read a textbook or maybe read a science magazine article about the possibility of element 115's existence to be able to make up a story in which element 115 isn't just hypothetical, but exists.

Put it this way, Element 120 has not yet been synthesized, but just like element 115 in Lazar's time, science does believe that it will someday be synthesized. So if I right now make up a fake story about how element 120 is used for FTL travel (knowing that element 120 is hypothesized to exist), and someday element 120 is found, does that mean that my fake story about FTL travel is real?

Lazar literally already said this. He never claimed to have "discovered" 115. It doesn't prove anything either way.

Correct. Element 115 was already hypothesized to exist before Lazar mentioned it, and for many years it was actually "expected" that it existed. Science even had a good understanding of the characteristics that the yet-undiscovered element 115 would likely posses.

Therefore, Lazar's mention of element 115 does not in itself add any credence to Lazar's claims. It should not be used as evidence supporting his claim.

The fact that Lazar mentioned element 115 before it was ever synthesized/discovered by science is meaningless. He could have gotten knowledge of the possible existence and characteristics of element 115 from simply reading a textbook or Scientific American magazine.

Science has still not dismissed the possibility that there is a stable isotope of element 115 with the characteristics that Lazar described.

originally posted by: tjocksteffe
Science has still not dismissed the possibility that there is a stable isotope of element 115 with the characteristics that Lazar described.

Neither has the science excluded the possibility of invisible flying unicorns.

a reply to: Hunkadinka

Lazar could very well be a liar but I looked up moscovium and thought this was interesting:

The hypothetical isotope 291Mc is an especially interesting case as it has only one neutron more than the heaviest known moscovium isotope, 290Mc. It could plausibly be synthesized as the daughter of 295Ts, which in turn could be made from the reaction 249Bk(48Ca,2n)295Ts.[34] Calculations show that it may have a significant electron capture or positron emission decay mode in addition to alpha decaying and also have a relatively long half-life of several seconds. This would produce 291Fl, 291Nh, and finally 291Cn which is expected to be in the middle of the island of stability and have a half-life of about 1200 years, affording the most likely hope of reaching the middle of the island using current technology. Possible drawbacks are that the cross section of the production reaction of 295Ts is expected to be low and the decay properties of superheavy nuclei this close to the line of beta stability are largely unexplored.[34]

That's from it's Wikipedia page. Moscovium is extremely radioactive and unstable with a half-life less than a second. However it's believed that one isotope of it may decay into an element that is smack-dab in the middle of the island of stability. A superheavy element with a very long half-life.

It could have applications for armor, weapons, and other things.

originally posted by: tc2290
What? It's well known heavy elements are made in supernovae and the centre of solar masses.

Generally the most massive stars can make elements as heavy as Iron which results from a process which releases energy. To make elements heavier than Iron requires energy be added to form the element, thus stars don't normally make those during their normal life.

The bigger the supernova collapse, the heavier the elements produced.

That sounds like something you made up, like Lazar made his wrong physics up, but if you have a peer reviewed source saying that, I'd be interested to read it, though I'm pretty sure you don't since I think it's not true.

For a star to make a supernova requires a certain mass, about 9-12 solar masses depending on the star's composition, so only stars at least that massive make supernovae. A supernova can make elements heavier than Iron because the explosion provides the additional energy needed to form heavier elements. But there's no reason to think that larger supernovae from more massive stars can make heavier elements as explained by this physicist:

curious.astro.cornell.edu... -formed-in-a-supernova-can-we-observe-them-advanced

Q Does a theoretical formulation exist which can predict the isotope yields of elements for the supernova of a given stellar mass?

A: ...The elements with atomic numbers greater than that of iron are made in a variety of processes, notably s-process (s for slow) and r-process (r for rapid) neutron capture. The way it works is this: you start out with a seed atom, say (56,26)Fe. You're in a region of high neutron flux (e.g. a supernova), so neutrons start to pile up on your atom. After you collect 6 neutrons, your atom becomes (62,26)Fe, which is unstable to beta decay on a time scale (about 1 minute, in this case) shorter than the time between neutron captures. Before it can collect any more neutrons, it beta decays to (62,27)Co, which beta decays to (62,28)Ni, which is stable. Now neutrons start to collect on the Ni, and so it goes, stepping through the periodic table. When the atomic number or mass number gets too high, however, neutron capture induces fission. Whether the island of stability can be reached therefore depends on the maximum atomic number that can support the r-process described above without induced fission occurring. Once the island of stability was predicted, people started writing lots of papers saying both yes, no and maybe to the question of whether the island of stability could be reached by the r-process. The field settled at a solid "maybe" before it petered out. So, in answer to your question, no--people have yet to determine whether the stable superheavy elements are formed at all. It's a matter of the nature of the universe, rather than one finding a star that's massive enough.

The abundances of the elements produced in a supernova can vary, partly based on the stars composition and other factors, but that's different than your claim; it doesn't work like you say.

originally posted by: tjocksteffe
Science has still not dismissed the possibility that there is a stable isotope of element 115 with the characteristics that Lazar described.

That depends on what you mean by stable.

The hypothesized "island of stability" may include elements/isotopes which are less unstable, but I don't know if anybody really expects them to be stable, which seems very unlikely. If there was an island of stability with truly stable elements, then we should be able to find them but if they exist they must be so rare we haven't been able to find them yet. Some theorists have guessed there could be very long half-lives in the island of stability (while other theorists disagree), but I think very long half lives is the best we could hope for rather than something that's actually stable. Even if the half-life was say, a million years for example, the abundances of such an unstable element would be extremely small in a solar system that's over 4 billion years old like ours.

Regarding "the characteristics that Lazar described" which as Lazar described it means that the "strong nuclear force" stops behaving like the strong nuclear force, and extends beyond the atom, pretty much everything scientists know about nuclear physics would have to be wrong for Lazar to be right, so any real scientist who has bothered to comment on the Lazar claims does what any scientist does when given extraordinary claims and says those require extraordinary evidence. Since Lazar has zero evidence of anything, they don't take what he says seriously if they bother to look at it.

So it seems rather silly to comment on what science thinks about stable isotopes as if it matters, when most of modern science about the atomic nucleus would have to be wrong for Lazar to be right about the behavior of the strong nuclear force. One must dismiss large portions of modern science to find what Lazar claims to be credible, presuming one knows modern science.

originally posted by: peskyhumans
a reply to: Hunkadinka

Lazar could very well be a liar but I looked up moscovium and thought this was interesting:

The hypothetical isotope 291Mc is an especially interesting case as it has only one neutron more than the heaviest known moscovium isotope, 290Mc. It could plausibly be synthesized as the daughter of 295Ts, which in turn could be made from the reaction 249Bk(48Ca,2n)295Ts.[34] Calculations show that it may have a significant electron capture or positron emission decay mode in addition to alpha decaying and also have a relatively long half-life of several seconds. This would produce 291Fl, 291Nh, and finally 291Cn which is expected to be in the middle of the island of stability and have a half-life of about 1200 years, affording the most likely hope of reaching the middle of the island using current technology. Possible drawbacks are that the cross section of the production reaction of 295Ts is expected to be low and the decay properties of superheavy nuclei this close to the line of beta stability are largely unexplored.[34]

That's from it's Wikipedia page. Moscovium is extremely radioactive and unstable with a half-life less than a second. However it's believed that one isotope of it may decay into an element that is smack-dab in the middle of the island of stability. A superheavy element with a very long half-life.

It could have applications for armor, weapons, and other things.

The idea that element 115 (and actually elements around element 114 and heavier on the periodic table) and/or isotopes of those elements might fall under an "island of stability" was known discussed since the 1960s (Myers and Swiatecki [1966] to be exact)

It was a concept already known in science long before Lazar. The idea that elements 114 through maybe, say 118 or so, might have isotopes that could theoretically be stable was written about in papers through the 1960s and 1970s, and written about in Science magazines.

It wasn't "super knowledge" that Lazar could only get by working with alien tech. All he needed to do was be able to read about the known science hypotheses and theories of the day.

a reply to: vlawde


Do you understand how the periodic table works??

Hydrogen =1

Helium =2

Exc..

Well the 1 and 2 are based on the number of protons.

Hydrogen has 1, helium has 2. So we use that for their periodic table number.


Well scientists had already confirmed up to element 110 and NO ONE THOUGHT THEY WERE THROUGH..


So Lazar “predicting” element 115 is the same as me predicting we will create a taller building 3 stories higher than the present highest one...

When they do build a taller building , did I have some super secret info???

Nope it is the obvious progression

a reply to: Box of Rain

DING DING!!

The amount of naturally occuring "stable" element 115 is irrevelant.
A sufficiently advanced civilization could theoretically make it, if they for example needed it to fuel their craft.

a reply to: tjocksteffe

Except why would anyone believe Lazar in the first place???

The government could erase his mit transcripts.... the government could not make every student and professor forget him..


No one has ever corroborated Lazar went to mit..


And this all started just a few years after he should have graduated ..

originally posted by: tjocksteffe
The amount of naturally occuring "stable" element 115 is irrevelant.
A sufficiently advanced civilization could theoretically make it, if they for example needed it to fuel their craft.

That is true. But the only thing I'm saying about the Lazzar/element 115 thing is that people seem to point to Lazar's knowledge of element 115 as evidence that helps corroborate his story.

However, it has been shown that Lazar (or anyone for that matter) could have known that science already hypothesized about the existence of element 115 long before Lazar told his story, and science even had ideas about some of the characteristics element 115 might posses.

All of those things were written about in papers and in public consumption science magazines (such as Scientific American) before Lazar had ever mentioned them.

So since Lazar didn't need super secret knowledge to be able to say the things he said about element 115, then that means the whole element 115 stuff does nothing to support his story.

a reply to: JustJohnny

Believe Lazar because he is essentially a whistleblower?

That's why I believe him.

Because is an independent man, NOT some government mouthpiece.

a reply to: Box of Rain

I think Lazar was just telling the truth, as best he knew it. A guy caught up in some stuff way beyond his control.

He had heard others talk about 115, that was what he did for a living.

There is secret # in this world, especially in that Nevada desert.

originally posted by: Salander
a reply to: Box of Rain

I think Lazar was just telling the truth, as best he knew it. A guy caught up in some stuff way beyond his control.

He had heard others talk about 115, that was what he did for a living.

There is secret # in this world, especially in that Nevada desert.

There are secrets, and then there are lies. Here's a clue on how to tell them apart.

Do you think Lazar was telling Bob Bigelow the truth when he used a commercial emulsive product as a fake element 115 to try to con Bigelow?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: mirageman
Truth is if Bob's story was real he has absolutely nothing but a story. Who's trying to prove him a fake? Oh!

Jacques Vallee noted Bob Bigelow sussed him out pretty quickly pretending he had the mysterious stable version of E115 but it was in fact industrial emulsifier.

See Forbidden Science 4

Considering that the most stable isotope of an atom with 115 protons has a half-life of 220 milliseconds, I find it hard to believe that anyone discovered or produced any appreciable quantity of this substance for visual examination.

That is, unless the aliens have knowledge of how to stabilize it more or less permanently even when removed from the craft.

I just don't buy it.

a reply to: Phage

Exactly, my freind, in fact there are islands of stability in many isotopes around 115, the most stable of which has a half-life of 28 days, ok way beyond your estimate but then the PTB have about 80 years head start on us dumb and ill informed peeps.

But OK yes, i asked Lear this (not very unreasonable question, given my current knoweledge of material science) and he had a fit on me, and tried to have me banned. Then i read the dark horse files, and a whole lot of other stuff. Buti still find Bob to be none other than a simple freelance researcher as myself, albeit with a simillar IQ, hahahahahaha