Physicists Thought The Atomic Giant Flerovium Was 'Magical', But It Was Just a Mirage 18 FEBRUARY 2021 Protons don't like to stay close to one another for very long. But if you've got the right number balanced neatly among enough neutrons, they just might build an atom that won't crumble apart in the blink of an eye.
Theorists had suggested 114 could be one such 'magic' number of protons – but a recent experiment conducted at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany now makes that incredibly unlikely. In 1998, Russian experimenters finally succeeded in building an element with 114 protons in its nucleus. It was later named flerovium after its birthplace, the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.