system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How long does an arrangement of particles have to be together to be considered a new element?

What is the minimum half-life of an element?
gpt
The question is mostly about how long does a system need to be bound to be considered a new element. Well new elements are super heavy. They decay by alpha decay or fission. Typically you would define a new isotope by whether or not it is bound. So the time scales for how long it is bound depend on the decay mode. The shortest time scales would be around 10^-22 seconds. Of course new elements last longer than that right now. Elements around 118 decay in milliseconds, which is much easier to measure.