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But the periodic table contains still more; the heaviest so far is element 118, oganesson, a “super-heavy” element with 118 protons and a half-life of half a millisecond.

Releasing an alpha changes the atom's identity: element 118 becomes 116, which becomes 114, and so on.

Similarly, although element 118 falls into the noble gas column, theory predicts that it will readily attract electrons—something no other noble gas does.

Fittingly, no living person has shaped the architecture of the periodic table more than he has, which is why element 118 is called oganesson.

“Element 117 was obtained in the amount of one atom per week, and element 118 one atom per month. There is no reason to believe that the yield will increase for the still-unknown elements 119 and 120,” he says.