Nobelium

History

Nobelium (named for Alfred Nobel) was first synthesized by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, John R. Walton and Torbjørn Sikkeland in April 1958 at the University of California, Berkeley. The team used the new heavy-ion linear accelerator (HILAC) to bombard a curium target (95% Cm-244 and 4.5% Cm-246) with carbon-12 ions to make nobelium-254 (half-life 55 seconds). Their work was confirmed by Soviet researchers in Dubna.

Related Topics:
Alfred Nobel - First synthesized - Albert Ghiorso - Glenn T. Seaborg - John R. Walton - Torbjørn Sikkeland - University of California, Berkeley - Ion - Linear accelerator - Curium - Carbon - Half-life - Soviet - Dubna

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A year earlier, however, physicists at the Nobel Institute in Sweden announced that they had synthesized an isotope of element 102. The team reported that they created an isotope with a half-life of 10 minutes at 8.5 MeV after bombarding curium-244 with carbon-13 nuclei. Based on this report, the Commission on Atomic Weights of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry assigned and accepted the name nobelium and the symbol No for the "new" element. Subsequent Russian and American efforts to repeat the experiment failed.

Related Topics:
Nobel Institute - Sweden - Isotope - Half-life - MeV - International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry - Russia

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In 1966 researchers at UC Berkeley confirmed the 1958 experiments and went on to show the existence of nobelium-254 (half-life 55 s), nobelium-252 (half-life 2.3 s), and nobelium-257 (half-life 23 s). The next year Ghiorso's group decided to retain the name nobelium for element 102.

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Nobelium was the most recent element "of which the news had come to Harvard" when Tom Lehrer wrote "The Elements Song" and was therefore the element with the highest atomic number to be included.

Related Topics:
Tom Lehrer - The Elements Song

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