Mixing all 94 naturally occuring elements together at once.

[Researcher X]

What if you had a large and very hot sphere (made of a a thick alloy/material with a higher melting point than any of the elements) and you fired in the 94 natural elements to collide in equal parts in the center and make a ball that fits the sphere? The solid elements would be in a powdered form, and the gases would not be allowed to escape. The sphere would be heated to 4000 degrees Celsius, pressurized at 10 atmospheres, and spun at a rate of 100 revolutions per second. Then it is slowed down, the pressure released, and rapidly cooled to -100. Then the ball of elements is taken from the encasing sphere (Let's assume it doesn't stick), and allowed to return to room temperature. What will it be like? Will it react with itself and burn/explode/melt, or will it reach an equilibrium?

Couldn't you do something similar to replicate the formation of the Earth? Getting all the elements, not in equal proportions, but in the proportions found in nature, putting them in a ball, heating them to the temperature of the early Earth, spinning them at a rate that the planet spun at, and so on?

 

[Sirsh]

That's a pretty sophisticated investigation.. I believe it would be Chaos.

 

[hamster143]

Strictly speaking, the number of elements which are naturally occurring in more than minute trace amounts is less than 94 (I think it's 84). Elements like technetium and neptunium are exceedingly rare because they are too unstable to survive since the time when Earth was formed, and they are only present as part of the decay chain of uranium. Astatine (#85) is so rare that it's been estimated that there's less than 30 g of astatine in the entire planet at any given time.

If you mix them in equal amounts, you'll get a big metal ball (most of the 94 elements are metals) with all kinds of impurities in it.

If you mix them in proportions found in nature, you won't even get a solid. 98% of the universe, by weight, is hydrogen and helium, followed by small quantities of oxygen and carbon. You'll get a small quantity of water, surrounded by an atmosphere of a mix of hydrogen, helium and carbon dioxide.

 

[Researcher X]

If you mix them in equal amounts, you'll get a big metal ball (most of the 94 elements are metals) with all kinds of impurities in it.

Won't it react with itself (I mean the various elements react with each other)? What would the heating and spinning do? Would it be a big ball of weird compounds rather than elements?