We always enjoy [The History Guy], and we wish he’d do more history of science and technology. But when he does, he always delivers! His latest video, which you can see below, focuses on the Cold War pursuit of creating transfermium elements. That is, the discovery of elements that appear above fermium using advanced techniques like cyclotrons.
There was a brief history of scientists producing unnatural elements. The two leaders in this work were a Soviet lab, the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research, and a US lab at Berkeley.
You’d think the discovery of new elements wouldn’t be very exciting. However, with the politics of the day, naming elements became a huge exercise in diplomacy.
Part of the problem was the difficulty in proving you created a huge atom for a few milliseconds. It was often the case that the initial inventor wasn’t entirely clear.
We were buoyed to learn that American scientists named an element(Mendelevium) after a Russian scientist as an act of friendship, although the good feelings didn’t last.
We wonder if a new element pops up, if we can get some votes for Hackadaium. Don’t laugh. You might not need a cyclotron anymore.
The administrators and professors at Berkeley were heartwarmingly friendly with the Soviets? You don’t say! I’m shocked, I tell you!
The header photo and the ones in the video are super cool. Can’t find any other versions of it with reverse image search.. I wonder which analog repository of photographs it came from
Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that scientists communicate and respect each other, it’s only those with political motivations who hate based on ethnicity, borders etc.
otoh, everyone has political motivations. scientists are not immune to the economic processes that produce political motivations.
The guys that worked on nuclear chemistry were generally pretty conservative by Berkeley standards.
Anyway, I was friends with some of the nuclear chemistry grad students in the 1980s and they didn’t have a great opinion of the Dubna lab. Go figure.
I didn’t like how dismissive he was of Californium. It’s the name of the school (University of California). Berkeley is merely the city it’s in. Go Bears!
Oh, and if you’re looking for the photo, try here: https://photos.lbl.gov/bp/#/folder/198646/
“We wonder if a new element pops up, if we can get some votes for Hackadaium.”
Hackadaium McAdayFace?
Essfourium? Lazarium? Possible names for a hypothetical element with atomic number one fifteenth.
Elizondium? The element whose very existence is denied by the Defense Department.