Nuclear physics · 1907–1991
Edwin McMillan
McMillan worked at Berkeley on cyclotron physics and, during the war, on radar and then at Los Alamos. His most consequential contribution to accelerator physics came in 1945 with the principle of phase stability, discovered independently by Veksler, which showed how particles could be kept in step with an accelerating field as their energy rose and made synchrotrons possible. He later directed the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
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Contribution & context
In 1940, with Philip Abelson, he showed that a radioactive product of neutron-irradiated uranium was chemically distinct from all known elements and identified it as element 93, naming it neptunium after the planet beyond Uranus. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Seaborg.
ornl.gov — Neptuniumornl.gov — NeptuniumRSC Periodic Table — NeptuniumDOE — RadiumUSGS — Radium
Discoveries in context
Making elements beyond uranium ↗
Eleven elements heavier than uranium were made rather than found, and identifying them meant inventing chemistry that works on a few thousand atoms at a time.
Sources & further reading
- ornl.gov — Neptunium ↗ornl.govReference explanation · Source checked
- ornl.gov — Neptunium ↗ornl.govReference explanation · Source checked
- RSC Periodic Table — Neptunium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
- DOE — Radium ↗United States Department of EnergyReference explanation · Source checked
- USGS — Radium ↗United States Geological SurveyReference explanation · Source checked
Sources and further reading. What the review labels mean