Futurama | Jumbonium

Good news, everyone! Dr Nate Davis, Associate Investigator and Senior Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington brings us the science - or lack of it - behind Jumbonium from Futurama.

Jumbonium from Futurama is a very rare, valuable and fictional element with atoms large enough to be seen with the naked eye. The Jumbonium atom was used for the Miss Universe competition, where it hovered above the prized tiara.

So what is it, already? It's a single atom of jumbonium, an element so rare the nucleus alone is worth more than $50,000.

Dr Nate Davis, MacDiarmid Institute Associate Investigator and Senior Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington explains jumbonium as:

"It's about a tennis-ball-sized atom, and then around that you see the electrons orbiting, as you would sort of imagine what an atom looks like... if you haven't got a chemistry degree, because that orbit is actually unstable."

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details