Glenn T. Seaborg

iron-59, zinc-65, cesium-137, manganese-54, antimony-124, californium-252, americium-241, and plutonium-238), as well as the fissile isotopes plutonium-239 and uranium-233. 

1 recorded a conversation with Glenn Seaborg on April 2, 1995, in Anaheim, during a chemistry meeting. This conversation follows first.  

It s not as central a field as it used to be, but there is still an awful lot of interesting work going on. There are also many interested young people in the field though perhaps not as many as used to be in the past. Environmental chemistry is more popular these days. However, there is no contradiction between nuclear chemistry and environmental chemistry. Also, I don t think that people s fear of nuclear power plants is justified, but the media paint a bad picture and connect it with the waste disposal problem. 

Glenn Seaborg and Istvan Hargittai in Anaheim, 1995 (by unknown photographer). 

Do you consider placin [ the actinides in the periodic table your most important achievement  

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Glenn T. Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science Los Alamos National Laboratory... 

One of the major advances of science in the first half of this century was the synthesis of ten elements beyond uranium. Glenn T. Seaborg participated in the discovery oj most of these, a sufficient tribute to his outstanding ability as a scientist. For the first such discoveries, those of neptunium and plutonium, he shared with Professor Edwin M. McMillan the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1951. 

Selected Papers of Glenn T. Seaborg by Glenn T. Seaborg... 

I discussed these ideas in detail with the late Robert Hofstadter (Stanford University) in 1977 who accepted to serve as one ofthe trustees of the Foundation. The remaining trustees included Willis E. Lamb, (Yale University), Glenn T. Seaborg,... 

Chairman ofthe Board Global Foundation. Inc., Professorand Director Emeritus University ofMiami Glenn T Seaborg... 

The element was generated by bombardment of californium with boron in a linear accelerator. The priority is debated. Isotopes of the elements were observed both by the group of Glenn T. Seaborg and by that of G. N. Flerov in Dubna. IUPAC proposed that the priority be shared. The longest-lived isotope has a half-life of 200 minutes. Lawrencium ends the series of actinides, as the 5f level is fully occupied with 14 electrons. 

E.g., Shah ca. 1929, Noyes and Noyes 1932, and Fisk 1936. Interestingly, in more recent years, the title has been resurrected by Glenn T. Seaborg (1994), the Nobel laureate nuclear chemist who discovered plutonium and other transuranium elements, worked on the Manhattan Project, and served on John F. Kennedy s Atomic Energy Commission. 

Plutonium (Pu, [Rn]5/ r 7.v2), name and symbol after the planet Pluto. Discovered (1940, Berkeley) by Glenn T. Seaborg, J.W. Kennedy, A. Wahl. 

Americium (Am, [Rii]5/7 7.s2), named after the Americas. Identified (1944, Chicago) by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, Leon O. Morgan, Albert Ghiorso. 

Berhelium (Bk, [Rn]5/97.v2J, named after Berkeley, California. Obtained (1949) by Stanley G. Thompson, Albert Ghiorso and Glenn T. Seaborg. 

Americium - the atomic number is 95 and the chemical symbol is Am. The name derives from America where it was first synthesized in a series of successive neutron capture reactions in the element plutonium, Pu, in a nuclear reactor in 1944 by American scientists under Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California lab in Berkeley, California, using the nuclear reaction Pu ( n, y) Y) P Am. Americium is the sixth element in the Actinide... 

Russian chemist Dimitrii Mendeleev who developed the Periodic Table of the chemical elements. Credit for the first synthesis of this element is given American chemists at the University of California lab in Berkeley, California under Glenn T. Seaborg in 1958, who used the nuclear reaction Es ( He, 2n) Md and the nuclear reaction Es ( He, n) Md. The longest half-life associated with this unstable element is 51 day Md,... 

Plutonium - the atomic number is. 94 and the chemical symbol is Pu. The name derives from the planet Pluto, (the Roman god of the underworld). Pluto was selected because it is the next planet in the solar system beyond the planet Neptime and the element plutonium is the next element in the period table beyond neptunium. Plutonium was first synthesized in 1940 by American chemists Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. McMillan, Joseph W. Kennedy and Arthur C. Wahl in the nuclear reaction U( H, 2n) Np = P => Pu. The longest half-life associated with this unstable element is 80 million year Pu. 

Glenn T. Seaborg and his colleagues, S. G. Thompson and A. Ghiorso continued to use the cyclotron in their laboratory located at the University of Galifornia, Berkeley, to create new transuranic elements. Between 1949 and 1950, they produced their fourth artificially... 

Albert Ghiorso and his team of chemists that included Glenn T. Seaborg, Stanley G. Thompson, Bernard G. Harvey, and Gregory R. Ghoppin bombarded atoms of einsteinium-253 with hehum ions in the cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley. This resulted in a few atoms of mendelevium-256, which is one of the isotopes of mendelevium plus a free neutron. 

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg proposed the term actinide for the new heavy elements that were predicted to follow the lanthanide series (Z-57 to Z-71). Dr. Seaborg believed that the actinides would be difficult to discover, and he proposed they would be trivalent homo-logues to the elements in the lanthanide series in which the 4f orbitals would be filled. His team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), located at the University of California s Berkeley campus, separated Z-95 (americium) and Z-96 (curium) as trivalent homologues of two of the elements in the lanthanide series located just above them in the periodic table. 

ORIGIN OF NAME Named after and in honor of the nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. ISOTOPES There a total of 16 Isotopes of unnilhexium (seaborgium) with half-lives ranging from 2.9 milliseconds to 22 seconds. All are artificially produced and radioactive, and they decay by spontaneous fission (SF) or alpha decay. 

Acknowledgments. The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Norman Edelstein and Professor Glenn T. Seaborg for helpful discussions and Mrs. June Smith for technical assistance with the manuscript. Financial assistance from the NSF (research grants to KNR and a fellowship to ECB) and the USAEC has made this work possible. 

American chemist Glenn T. Seaborg Radioactive metal formed by bombarding uranium with deutrons used to power medical devices and spacecraft essential to many nuclear plants. 

American chemist Glenn T. Seaborg Artificially made and radioactive the alpha particles emitted by its isotope americium-24 1 enable the air to conduct electricity, making it useful in smoke detectors. 

American chemists and physicists Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso Reactive metal produced by bombarding plutonium-239 with helium nuclei named for Pierre and Marie Curie useful for powering equipment in remote locations. 

American chemists and physicists Glenn T. Seaborg, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso, and Kenneth Street Produced by bombarding curium-242 with helium nuclei its isotope californium-252 is excellent source of neutrons useful in esearch. 

Team of American physicists, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and UC Berkeley Produced by bombarding californium-249 with oxygen-18 chemically similar to molybdenum and tungsten named for chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. 

The existence of this element was later confirmed in Germany by K. Starke (54) and by F. Strassmann and O. Hahn (55). At this point in his work, however, McMillan left Berkeley to undertake war research on radar. He turned the investigation of the new element over to his colleague, Glenn T. Seaborg (51). 

G. T. Seaborg and E. M. McMillan. The Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 1951 was awarded jointly to Glenn T. Seaborg and Edwin M. McMillan, both of the University of California, for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements." Dr. Seaborg is chairman of the Division of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry at the University of California. Dr. McMillan worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in connection with radar development, collaborated with J. Robert Oppenheimer in organizing the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and did the initial work that led to the discovery of elements heavier than uranium. 

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