Albert Ghiorso
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Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12
chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...
s on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.


Biography


Early life

Ghiorso was born in
Vallejo, California Vallejo ( ; ) is a city in Solano County, California and the second largest city in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. Located on the shores of San Pablo Bay, the city had a population of 126,090 at the 2020 census. Vallejo is home to th ...
on July 15, 1915, of Italian and Spanish ancestry. He grew up in
Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...
. As a teenager, he built radio circuitry and earned a reputation for establishing radio contacts at distances that outdid the military. He received his BS in electrical engineering from the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1937. After graduation, he worked for Reginald Tibbets, a prominent amateur radio operator who operated a business supplying radiation detectors to the government. Ghiorso's ability to develop and produce these instruments, as well as a variety of electronic tasks, brought him into contact with the nuclear scientists at the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, in particular
Glenn Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
. During a job in which he was to install an intercom at the lab, he met two secretaries, one of whom married Seaborg. The other, Wilma Belt, became Albert's wife of 60+ years. Ghiorso was raised in a devout Christian family, but later left the religion and became an atheist. However, he still identified with Christian ethics.


Wartime research

In the early 1940s, Seaborg moved to Chicago to work on the Manhattan Project. He invited Ghiorso to join him, and for the next four years Ghiorso developed sensitive instruments for detecting the radiation associated with nuclear decay, including spontaneous fission. One of Ghiorso's breakthrough instruments was a 48-channel pulse height analyzer, which enabled him to identify the energy, and therefore the source, of the radiation. During this time they discovered two new elements (95, americium and 96, curium), although publication was withheld until after the war.


New elements

After the war, Seaborg and Ghiorso returned to Berkeley, where they and colleagues used the 60" Crocker cyclotron to produce elements of increasing atomic number by bombarding exotic targets with helium ions. In experiments during 1949-1950, they produced and identified elements 97 (
berkelium Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Ber ...
) and 98 (
californium Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), by bombarding ...
). In 1953, in a collaboration with Argonne Lab, Ghiorso and collaborators sought and found elements 99 (
einsteinium Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein. Einsteinium was discovered as a com ...
) and 100 (
fermium Fermium is a synthetic element with the symbol Fm and atomic number 100. It is an actinide and the heaviest element that can be formed by neutron bombardment of lighter elements, and hence the last element that can be prepared in macroscopic qua ...
), identified by their characteristic radiation in dust collected by airplanes from the first thermonuclear explosion (the Mike test). In 1955, the group used the cyclotron to produce 17 atoms of element 101 (
mendelevium Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md ( formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macrosco ...
), the first new element to be discovered atom-by-atom. The recoil technique invented by Ghiorso was crucial to obtaining an identifiable signal from individual atoms of the new element. In the mid-1950s it became clear that to extend the periodic chart any further, a new accelerator would be needed, and the Berkeley Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC) was built, with Ghiorso in charge. That machine was used in the discovery of elements 102-106 (102,
nobelium Nobelium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol No and atomic number 102. It is named in honor of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of science. A radioactive metal, it is the tenth transuranic element and is the penul ...
; 103,
lawrencium Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. A radio ...
; 104,
rutherfordium Rutherfordium is a chemical element with the symbol Rf and atomic number 104, named after New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford. As a synthetic element, it is not found in nature and can only be made in a laboratory. It is radioactiv ...
; 105,
dubnium Dubnium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Db and atomic number 105. It is highly radioactive: the most stable known isotope, dubnium-268, has a half-life of about 16 hours. This greatly limits extended research on the element. ...
and 106,
seaborgium Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is al ...
), each produced and identified on the basis of only a few atoms. The discovery of each successive element was made possible by the development of innovative techniques in robotic target handling, fast chemistry, efficient radiation detectors, and computer data processing. The 1972 upgrade of the HILAC to the superHILAC provided higher intensity ion beams, which was crucial to producing enough new atoms to enable detection of element 106. With increasing atomic number, the experimental difficulties of producing and identifying a new element increase significantly. In the 1970s and 1980s, resources for new element research at Berkeley were diminishing, but the GSI laboratory at Darmstadt, Germany, under the leadership of Peter Armbruster and with considerable resources, was able to produce and identify elements 107-109 (107, bohrium; 108,
hassium Hassium is a chemical element with the symbol Hs and the atomic number 108. Hassium is highly radioactive; its most stable known isotopes have half-lives of approximately ten seconds. One of its isotopes, 270Hs, has magic numbers of both protons ...
and 109,
meitnerium Meitnerium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Mt and atomic number 109. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element (an element not found in nature, but can be created in a laboratory). The most stable known isotope, meitnerium-2 ...
). In the early 1990s, the Berkeley and Darmstadt groups made a collaborative attempt to create element 110. Experiments at Berkeley were unsuccessful, but eventually elements 110-112 (110,
darmstadtium Darmstadtium is a chemical element with the symbol Ds and atomic number 110. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element. The most stable known isotope, darmstadtium-281, has a half-life of approximately 12.7 seconds. Darmstadtium was firs ...
; 111,
roentgenium Roentgenium is a chemical element with the symbol Rg and atomic number 111. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element that can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. The most stable known isotope, roentgenium-282, has a h ...
and 112,
copernicium Copernicium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Cn and atomic number 112. Its known isotopes are extremely radioactive, and have only been created in a laboratory. The most stable known isotope, copernicium-285, has a half-life of ap ...
) were identified at the Darmstadt laboratory. Subsequent work at the JINR laboratory at Dubna, led by Yuri Oganessian and a Russian-American team of scientists, was successful in identifying elements 113-118 (113,
nihonium Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In the periodic table, nihonium is a transactinide ...
; 114,
flerovium Flerovium is a Transactinide element, superheavy chemical element with Chemical symbol, symbol Fl and atomic number 114. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element. It is named after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint ...
; 115,
moscovium Moscovium is a synthetic element with the symbol Mc and atomic number 115. It was first synthesized in 2003 by a joint team of Russian and American scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. In December 2015, ...
; 116,
livermorium Livermorium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lv and has an atomic number of 116. It is an extremely radioactive element that has only been created in a laboratory setting and has not been observed in nature. The element is named afte ...
; 117,
tennessine Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number 117. It is the second-heaviest known element and the penultimate element of the 7th period of the periodic table. The discovery of tennessine was officially anno ...
and 118,
oganesson Oganesson is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Og and atomic number 118. It was first synthesized in 2002 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, near Moscow, Russia, by a joint team of Russian and American scient ...
), thereby completing the
Period 7 element A period 7 element is one of the chemical elements in the seventh row (or '' period'') of the periodic table of the chemical elements. The periodic table is laid out in rows to illustrate recurring (periodic) trends in the chemical behavior of t ...
s of the periodic table of the elements.


Inventions

Ghiorso invented numerous techniques and machines for isolating and identifying heavy elements atom-by-atom. He is generally credited with implementing the multichannel analyzer and the technique of recoil to isolate reaction products, although both of these were significant extensions of previously understood concepts. His concept for a new type of accelerator, the Omnitron, is acknowledged to have been a brilliant advance that probably would have enabled the Berkeley lab to discover numerous additional new elements, but the machine was never built, a victim of the evolving political landscape of the 1970s in the U.S. that de-emphasized basic nuclear research and greatly expanded research on environmental, health, and safety issues. Partially as a result of the failure to build the Omnitron, Ghiorso (together with colleagues Bob Main and others) conceived the joining of the HILAC and the Bevatron, which he called the Bevalac. This combination machine, an ungainly articulation across the steep slope at the Rad Lab, provided heavy ions at GeV energies, thereby enabling development of two new fields of research: "high-energy nuclear physics," meaning that the compound nucleus is sufficiently hot to exhibit collective dynamical effects, and heavy ion therapy, in which high-energy ions are used to irradiate tumors in cancer patients. Both of these fields have expanded into activities in many laboratories and clinics worldwide.


Later life

In his later years, Ghiorso continued research toward finding superheavy elements, fusion energy, and innovative electron beam sources. He was a non-participating co-author of the experiments in 1999 that gave evidence of elements 116 and 118, which later turned out to be a case of scientific fraud perpetrated by the first author,
Victor Ninov Victor Ninov ( bg, Виктор Нинов, born June 27, 1959) is a Bulgarian physicist and former researcher who worked primarily in creating heavy elements. He is known for the co-discoveries of elements 110, 111, and 112 (darmstadtium, ro ...
. He also had brief research interests in the free quark experiment of William Fairbank of Stanford, in the discovery of element 43, and in the electron disk accelerator, among others.


Legacy

Albert Ghiorso is credited with having co-discovered the following elements * '' Americium'' ca. 1945 (element 95) * '' Curium'' in 1944 (element 96) * ''
Berkelium Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Ber ...
'' in 1949 (element 97) * ''
Californium Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), by bombarding ...
'' in 1950 (element 98) * ''
Einsteinium Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein. Einsteinium was discovered as a com ...
'' in 1952 (element 99) * ''
Fermium Fermium is a synthetic element with the symbol Fm and atomic number 100. It is an actinide and the heaviest element that can be formed by neutron bombardment of lighter elements, and hence the last element that can be prepared in macroscopic qua ...
'' in 1953 (element 100) * ''
Mendelevium Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md ( formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macrosco ...
'' in 1955 (element 101) * ''
Nobelium Nobelium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol No and atomic number 102. It is named in honor of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of science. A radioactive metal, it is the tenth transuranic element and is the penul ...
'' in 1958–59 (element 102) * ''
Lawrencium Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. A radio ...
'' in 1961 (element 103) * ''
Rutherfordium Rutherfordium is a chemical element with the symbol Rf and atomic number 104, named after New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford. As a synthetic element, it is not found in nature and can only be made in a laboratory. It is radioactiv ...
'' in 1969 (element 104) * ''
Dubnium Dubnium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Db and atomic number 105. It is highly radioactive: the most stable known isotope, dubnium-268, has a half-life of about 16 hours. This greatly limits extended research on the element. ...
'' in 1970 (element 105) * ''
Seaborgium Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is al ...
'' in 1974 (element 106) Ghiorso personally selected some of the names recommended by his group for the new elements. His original name for element 105 (hahnium) was changed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (
IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...
) to dubnium, to recognize the contributions of the laboratory at Dubna, Russia, in the search for trans-fermium elements. His recommendation for element 106, seaborgium, was accepted only after extensive debate about naming an element after a living person. In 1999, evidence for two superheavy elements ( element 116 and element 118) was published by a group in Berkeley. The discovery group intended to propose the name '' ghiorsium'' for element 118, but eventually the data were found to have been tampered and in 2002 the claims were withdrawn. Ghiorso's lifetime output comprised about 170 technical papers, most published in The Physical Review. Ghiorso is famous among his colleagues for his endless stream of creative "doodles," which define an art form suggestive of fractals. He also developed a state-of-the-art camera for birdwatching, and was a constant supporter of environmental causes and organizations. Several obituaries are available online, and a full-length biography is in preparation.


Notes


References


Images in the LBNL archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghiorso, Albert 1915 births 2010 deaths American atheists American electrical engineers Discoverers of chemical elements People involved with the periodic table Manhattan Project people People from Alameda, California People from Vallejo, California UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Howard N. Potts Medal recipients Fellows of the American Physical Society