Glenn T. Seaborg

Glenn T. Seaborg was an American nuclear chemist who helped discover ten transuranium elements and shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work reshaped the periodic table by placing the actinide series beneath the lanthanides.

Edwin McMillan: An American physicist who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discoveries in the chemistry of transuranium elements. McMillan and Seaborg collaborated on plutonium research and shared the Nobel Prize.
Transuranium element: A chemical element with an atomic number greater than uranium’s 92. These elements were the central targets of Seaborg’s discovery program.
Plutonium: A radioactive metallic element with atomic number 94, first identified in 1940 by a Berkeley research team. Seaborg co-led the work that established plutonium as a new element.
Actinide series: The series of 15 metallic elements from actinium through lawrencium, whose electrons fill the 5f subshell. Seaborg’s actinide concept placed the heavy elements in a coherent row beneath the lanthanides.
Joseph W. Kennedy: An American chemist who co-discovered plutonium with Glenn T. Seaborg, Arthur Wahl, and Emilio Segrè. Kennedy was part of the Berkeley team that first identified plutonium.
Cyclotron: A particle accelerator that uses a magnetic field and alternating electric fields to drive charged particles into spiral paths. Cyclotrons supplied energetic particles for synthesizing new nuclei.
Americium: A radioactive metallic element with atomic number 95, first produced in 1944. Its discovery demonstrated that heavier actinides could be made and chemically characterized.
Manhattan Project: The United States-led wartime project that developed the first atomic weapons. Seaborg directed plutonium chemistry at the Chicago branch of this wartime program.
Arthur Wahl: An American radiochemist who helped discover plutonium and several other transuranium elements. Wahl performed key chemical separations in Seaborg’s Berkeley research group.
Nuclear fission: The splitting of an atomic nucleus into lighter nuclei, usually releasing neutrons and energy. Fission products helped reveal plutonium’s nuclear behavior and practical significance.

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