Ready to lose a few hours today? Developers have taken the addicting game 2048 and turned it into one where you fuse together chemical elements like a star to try to create iron. The game is called Fe[26]. And it’s already given one of our editors an undying hatred of magnesium.
The addictive game 2048 just got geekier
Right after the Big Bang, only a handful of elements existed, mostly hydrogen and some helium and lithium. Stars have created almost all the other chemical elements by fusing these starting ingredients together with amazing pressures and heat. They’ve made the oxygen we breathe, the carbon that makes up much of life, and even the iron in the middle of the Earth.
Why is the game’s goal to get to iron? Because once a star is in the phase of life where it’s making iron, it’s generally going to die pretty soon. (By the way, if the star goes supernova, that explosion can create elements heavier than iron, such as uranium.)
The game adheres as much as possible to actual fusion reactions (hydrogen + hydrogen = deuterium, etc), while keeping the game fun. And it even takes into account radioactive decay. If you want to use a radioactive element, you better move quick.
See More:
