In this chapter, Kean starts describing the story of Glenn Seaborg. He was a Nobel Prize winner in the field of chemistry, he co-founded the Pac-10 sports league, the team leader of the Manhattan project, and much more. He and his friend, Edwin McMillan, created the first transuranic element (or elements with a greater atomic number than 92), neptunium. However, Seaborg realized element 93 was unstable and could become element 94. So he and a colleague took a microscopic sample of element 93 and put it through a radioactive sample that dissolved away the extra neptunium and the remaining neptunium was element 94, plutonium. Seaborg was then summoned to Chicago and took students with him, including Al Ghiorso. Although Ghiorso was the complete opposite of Seaborg, only earned a bachelors degree, and was put to work wiring detectors; the two became great friends and together they returned to Berkley to make heavy elements. The two discovered more elements than anyone in history. They started off by striking plutonium with radioactive particles, but instead of using neutrons they used alpha particles which were much faster and easier to use. With this they developed elements 96 and 95. They named element 95 americium (America) and element 96 curium ( Marie Curie). However people were skeptical and in 1949 they discovered berkelium and californium, but still people hardly paid attention. Later they discovered elements 99, einsteinium, and element 100, fermium. However, creating element 101would prove to be a lot more difficult but they managed by putting very small pits of einsteinium onto a gold foil and struck it with alpha particles. So to detect it they would take what remained to another lab as fast as possible where Ghiorso connected his newest radiation detector to the fire alarm system, and that night it rung 16 times which meant the creation of a new element, element 101, mendelevium (Dimitri Mendeleev). The group then discovered element 102, nobelium, and then element 103, lawrencium.
Kean then describes the leadership of Lenin and Stalin and how Russia was very scientifically behind the rest of the world and how scientist were treated there. He then introduces a nuclear scientist named Georgy Flyorov who discovered that scientific journals had stopped publishing about uranium fission research. He figured out that these were state secrets, so he wrote a letter to Stalin warning him about his suspicions. In 1949 they developed their first nuclear bob and, for his loyalty, Flyorov was awarded his own lab in the city of Dubna. After studying hard and coping techniques from the Berkley lab, Fyorov and his team discovered element 104. Kean then describes that back in Berkley their pride was wounded when the Soviets claimed to have discovered element 104 and even discredited them. So they set out to make their own element 104 in 1969 but by then Dubna had created element 105 and in 1974 they both created element 106 around the same time. Then a group in West Germany claimed to have discovered thee elements but by then the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) stepped in. They sent 9 men to all labs and studied their data until they all met for weeks to comprise the final names of the elements. In 1996 the official list was seaborium (106), dubnium (105), bohrium (107), hassium (108), and meitrium (109). Kean then describes a picture of Seaborg standing next to the periodic table while pointing at seabogium, but soon died three years later.
Later Kean describes that the Germans created element 110 (darmstadtium), element 111 (roentegenium), and then element 112 (copernium). In order to catch up to the Germans, the Berkley lab hired Victor Ninov who was important to the discovery of element 110 and 112. He claimed to have discovered element 118 by smashing krypton and lead together, when he did it soon decayed into element 116 which were 2 news elements claimed to be discovered. However, when the Germans and Russians attempted to make element 118 by the same method they did not produce element 118. When the Berkley lab tried the same experiment they produced nothing. They then found out that Ninov inserted false positives into his data. So the Berkley lab had to retract their discovery and fired Ninov. Later Kean describes that the Russians created 3 atoms of element 118 and to be called flyorium.
Like all the other chapters, I enjoyed this chapter and the stories Kean describes. I especially liked how scientist raced to find new elements on the periodic table and how egoistical scientist would get when one lab finds a new element before the other. The only thing I did not like about it was that I got a bit confused when the author talked about Stalin and Lenin, but overall I enjoyed it. The one thing I would share to a friend is how scientist raced to find so many elements in just a short period of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment