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Transuranic Alchemy

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From Transuranic to Superheavy Elements

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology ((BRIEFSHIST))

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Abstract

The history of superheavy elements (SHEs) cannot be cleanly separated from the earlier history of transuranic elements with atomic numbers smaller than 104. By the late 1960s elements up to this place in the periodic table, including lawrencium of Z = 103, had been discovered although in a few cases the discovery claims were controversial. In this period the group of Berkeley nuclear scientists faced the first serious competition from scientists in Dubna in the Soviet Union. The beginning of proper SHE research was in part inspired by theoretical predictions of a so-called island of stability which also stimulated much work on the possible existence of SHEs in nature. This line of work, culminating in the 1970s, did not result in positive evidence and yet the search for naturally occurring SHEs has continued to this very day. The chapter ends with brief remarks on scientists’ motivation for synthesising and examining the very heavy elements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Through much of his career, Seaborg was heavily involved in political and administrative work. From 1961 to 1971 he served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), possibly the most important position in American research policy. During this period he spent most of his time in Washington D.C. When he returned to Berkeley he was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of California.

  2. 2.

    According to http://www.halos.com/, polonium halos prove that “our earth was founded in a very short time, in complete harmony with the Biblical record of creation.” In the 1990s Gentry rejected the standard big bang cosmological model, arguing that the universe was static and divinely created.

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  1. Niels Bohr Archive, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Helge Kragh

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  1. Helge Kragh
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Correspondence to Helge Kragh .

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Kragh, H. (2018). Transuranic Alchemy. In: From Transuranic to Superheavy Elements. SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75813-8_2

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