My bald padlet by Gavin Syafi Anggakara

Biodata

asumadiwangsa — 2025-01-06 07:49:45 UTC

Full Name: Glenn Theodore Seaborg

Born: April 19, 1912

Ishpeming, Michigan, US

Died:February 25, 1999 (aged 86)

Lafayette, California, US

Backstory

asumadiwangsa — 2025-01-06 07:57:29 UTC

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was born in Ishpeming, Michigan, on April 19, 1912, the son of Herman Theodore (Ted) and Selma Olivia Erickson Seaborg. He had one sister, Jeanette, who was two years younger. His family spoke Swedish at home. He did not take an interest in science until his junior year when he was inspired by Dwight Logan Reid, a chemistry and physics teacher at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts.

Seaborg graduated from Jordan in 1929 at the top of his class and received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1933. He worked his way through school as a stevedore and a laboratory assistant at Firestone. Seaborg received his PhD in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1937 with a doctoral thesis on the "Interaction of Fast Neutrons with Lead",in which he coined the term "nuclear spallation".

Seaborg was a member of the professional chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma. As a graduate student in the 1930s Seaborg performed wet chemistry research for his advisor Gilbert Newton Lewis, and published three papers with him on the theory of acids and bases.Seaborg studied the text “Applied Radiochemistry” by Otto Hahn, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, and it had a major impact on his developing interests as a research scientist. For several years, Seaborg conducted important research in artificial radioactivity using the Lawrence cyclotron at UC Berkeley. He was excited to learn from others that nuclear fission was possible—but also chagrined, as his own research might have led him to the same discovery.

Seaborg also became an adept interlocutor of Berkeley physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had a daunting reputation and often answered a junior colleague's question before it had even been stated. Often the question answered was more profound than the one asked, but of little practical help. Seaborg learned to state his questions to Oppenheimer quickly and succinctly.

Michigan Man Wins Nobel Prize

sanggakara — 2025-01-08 02:21:29 UTC

Glenn Theodore Seaborg who was born in Ishpeming, Michigan. Has recently won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry alongside Edwin Mattison McMillan for discovering 10 new elements. These elements which are called “transuranium elements” by the scientific community are chemical elements with an atomic number greater than 92, which is the atomic number of uranium. All of them are radioactively unstable and decay into other elements. Apart from neptunium and plutonium, which have been found in trace amounts in nature, none occur naturally on Earth and they are synthetic.

We asked Seaborg on how he came to discover these elements and he told us the process of how they discovered one of them. He said that in February 1941, he and his collaborators produced one of these elements (plutonium) by bombarding with deuterons, they observed the creation of neptunium, element 93. But it then underwent beta-decay, forming a new element, plutonium, with 94 protons. But it then underwent beta-decay, forming a new element, plutonium, with 94 protons. Plutonium is fairly stable, but undergoes alpha-decay, which explained the presence of alpha particles coming from neptunium.

The editors of this newspapers would like to congratulate Seaborg and McMillan for their contributions to the scientific community and especially for the field of nuclear study, this discovery also adds an additional 10 new elements to the ever growing periodic table, which is very impressive.

Transuranium Elements

sanggakara — 2025-01-13 03:50:48 UTC

The transuranium (or transuranic) elements are the chemical elements with atomic number greater than 92, which is the atomic number of uranium. All of them are radioactive-unstable and decay into other elements. Except for neptunium and plutonium, which have been found in trace amounts in nature, none occur naturally on Earth and they are synthetic (man made).

There are many transuranium elements that have been discovered, these include:

93 neptunium Np
94 plutonium Pu
95 americium Am
96 curium Cm
97 berkelium Bk
98 californium Cf
99 einsteinium Es
100 fermium Fm
101 mendelevium Md
102 nobelium No
103 lawrencium Lr

Significance

sanggakara — 2025-01-13 04:06:13 UTC

The impact of these transuranium elements have greatly changed the world, for better and for worse depending on how you look at it. Alongside uranium, transuranium elements are used to nuclear power plants as one of the main sources of electricity with the growing climate change and global warming threat that is prompting countries to find renewable energy sources. However these elements have been used for other more sinister means, plutonium was used for the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, and other elements have also been used for far more potent bombs made during the Cold War. So the impact of Seaborg for the discovery of these elements is incredibly significant, as it has granted us a new energy source that’s renewable, while also creating a weapon of mass destruction.