Are there any uses for isotopes of hydrogen that have a greater number of neutrons than tritium? I know they exist in theory, do they exist in practise? or are they too rare and unstable to use?
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ANSWERS: 3
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according to my copy of the "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" (the ultimate authority on such things) there are only three isotopes of hydrogen (hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium). Tritium's half-life is only 12.32 years. So, if there are any isotopes that are heavier than tritium, then they would have much shorter half-lives than that. My copy of the CRC is the 1990-1991 edition. So, it is possible to heavier isotopes have been discovered since it was published. However, if such an isotope was discovered it would have an extremely short half-life, probably short enough to make them unusable for much of anything.
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Hydrogen-4 has been made: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-4 At least, they *claim* it must have been made. The half life is much less than a picosecond. If it has a use, it can surely only be to find out more about the nuclear forces.
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1) "the Q-bomb, a prototype doomsday device that could destroy the world if triggered." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared "the name quadium was given to the hydrogen-4 isotope that powered the Q-bomb that the Duchy of Grand Fenwick captured from the United States." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_hydrogen (however, it just exists in fiction) 2) The isotopes 4H, 5H, 6H and 7H half-life is in the range of 10^-22 s. Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_hydrogen For this reason, we don't have practical applications for them at the moment. Just experimenting around to synthetize them.
Glenn Blaylock 
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