Tag: periodic table

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May 5, 1958 — The discovery of Nobelium is announced

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Nobelium is a trans-uranic element whose atomic number is 102. A radioactive metal, it was first created in April 1958 by a team at the University of California’s Berkeley campus. The members of the team were Albert Ghiorso, Torbjorn Sikkeland, John R. Walton and Glenn Seaborg.

They named the newly discovered element after Alfred Nobel, which may or may not have been intended as a tiny hint to the Nobel Prize Committee. There is some controversy regarding this date, with several different teams claiming to have discovered Nobelium at different times, but this one seems to be the most commonly cited.

AlfredNobel2.jpg
By Unknown author – [1][2], Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

The Fez — The Dead Milkmen

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November 1, 1952 — Einsteinium is first created

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Einsteinium is a completely artifical element (atomic number 99) with a very short half-life (a about 1 and a third years). It was first discovered in the fallout from the detonation of the world’s first hydrogen bomb, code Ivy Mike, detonated at Enewetak Atoll on November 1, 1952.

As a trans-uranic element, it is extremely radioactive. It has no known applications other using it to develop other extremely radioactive trans-uranic elements with even higher atomic numbers – so far, it has been employed successfully in the creation of mendelevium (atomic number 101) and unsuccessfully in the attempted creation of ununennium (atomic number 119).

Quartz vial (9 mm diameter) containing ~300 micrograms of solid 253Es. The illumination produced is a result of the intense radiation from 253Es.
By Haire, R. G., US Department of Energy.
Touched up by Materialscientist at en.wikipedia. – [1], Haire, Richard G. (2006). “Einsteinium”. In Morss; Edelstein, Norman M.; Fuger, Jean. The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements (3rd ed.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 1-4020-3555-1. p. 1580
Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by User:Urutseg using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

The Fez — The Dead Milkmen

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March 17, 1950 — The creation of Californium is announced

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One of the elements of the actinide group, Californium was first synthesized on approximately February 9, 1950 by researchers at the University of California. After checking and replicating the initial experiment, its discovery was announced a month later, and the element named for the university (and state) where it had been created.

Unusually for a synthetic element, it was later discovered in naturally occurring forms, albeit as a result of extremely rare phenomena. Californium also has practical uses, notably in initiating nuclear reactions and in the creation of higher elements – ununoctium (element 118) was synthesized by bombarding californium-249 atoms with calcium-48 ions

A very small disc of silvery metal, magnified to show its metallic texture
By United States Department of Energy (see File:Einsteinium.jpg) – “Californium” in (2006) THE CHEMISTRY OF THE ACTINIDE AND TRANSACTINIDE ELEMENTS, III (3rd ed.), Springer, pp. 1,518 DOI: 10.1007/1-4020-3598-5_11., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

The Fez — The Dead Milkmen