If it were possible to associate a human face with the modern periodic table, that face would most likely belong to Glenn Seaborg (1912–1999), the discoverer of ten transuranium elements and the name behind Element 106. Seaborg’s contributions to heavy-element chemistry began in 1940, when he and coworkers at the University of California at Berkeley produced the first sample of plutonium by bombarding uranium with deuterons (21 H nuclei) in a particle accelerator. They found that the isotope plutonium-239 undergoes nuclear fission (see Chapter 26), making it a potential energy source for nuclear power or nuclear weapons.As American involvement in World War II grew, President Franklin Roosevelt called Seaborg and other eminent scientists to the Wartime Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where they figured out how to prepare and purify plutonium-239 in useful quantities for the Manhatten Project, the making of the atom bomb. In 1945, Seaborg was one of the signers of the Franck Report, a document recommending that a safe demonstration test of the atomic bomb might persuade Japan to surrender without the bomb actually being used. Professor Seaborg served as a scientific advisor for nine other presidents following Roosevelt and was chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.
Seaborg’s contributions illustrate how certain areas of science can be highly influenced by a particular institution or even a national tradition over time. His discovery of plutonium at the University of California at Berkeley followed the 1940 synthesis of neptunium at the same site by Edwin McMillan, who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Seaborg for these accomplishments. Since that time, Seaborg and other teams involving Berkeley researchers at the University’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have prepared nine more heavy elements. He and coworkers hold the world’s only patents on chemical elements, for americium and curium. The original location of the first transuranium laboratory on the Berkeley campus (a few yards from the later site of Professor Seaborg’s reserved “Nobel Laureate” parking space) is now a national historic landmark.
Laboratories in the United States, Russia, and Germany have been the most active in the synthesis of new elements. In 1994, nationalistic feelings invaded what should have been impartial decisions by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) regarding the official names for elements 101 and 109. In some cases, researchers from different
Countries had proposed different names for these elements based on where credit for their discovery was felt to be deserved. For example, the name “hahnium” was proposed for element 105 by American researchers, while the Russians preferred the snappier “nielsbohrium.” The American Chemical Society proposed to name element 106 seaborgium (Sg), but the IUPAC’s nomenclature committee rejected the choice, objecting to the fact that Seaborg was still alive (“and they can prove it,” he quipped). Outrage at this and some of the other naming decisions prompted many scientists to ignore the IUPAC’s recommended name for 106, rutherfordium, and to continue to use seaborgium. In 1997, the IUPAC reversed its decision and endorsed Sg, saving the chemical literature from future confusion caused by different naming practices in the scientific journals and conferences of different countries.
If Professor Seaborg had been nominated for a different honor—appearance on a U.S. postage stamp—the story would have had an unhappier ending. Although surely not as rare a commodity as the names of new chemical elements, United States stamps are not permitted to honor living individuals. Seaborg would have been the only person in the world who could have received mail addressed entirely in elements : Seaborgium, Lawrencium (for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory), Berkelium, Californium, Americium—and don’t forget the ZIP code, 94720.
Lisa Saunders Boffa
Senior Chemist
Exxon Corporation
