The George Herbert Jones Laboratory is an academic building at 5747 S. Ellis Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, on the main campus of the
University of Chicago. Room 405 of the building was named a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1967; it was the site where
plutonium, the first man-made element, was isolated and measured.
Description and history
The George Herbert Jones Laboratory is located at the northwest corner of the main quadrangle of the University of Chicago campus, between East 58th and 57th Streets. It is a four-story masonry structure, built in 1928-29 as facility and instructional space for the university's staff of research
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
s and graduate students in
chemistry. Room 405 is a relatively non-descript chamber on the fourth floor, measuring , with shelves and counters lining its walls. It is accessed via a wooden door with a glass window in its upper half.
As part of the
U.S. War Department's Manhattan Project, University of Chicago chemists began to study the newly manufactured radioactive element,
plutonium. Room 405 was the site where, for the first time on August 18, 1942, a team led by physicist
Glenn Seaborg isolated a trace quantity of this new element. Measurements performed on September 10, 1942 enabled chemists to determine the new element's
atomic weight
Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a giv ...
. This important step was to change the world, making possible both
nuclear power and
nuclear weapons.
Seaborg later said of this event: "These memorable days will go down in scientific history to mark the first sight of a
synthetic element
A synthetic element is one of 24 known chemical elements that do not occur naturally on Earth: they have been created by human manipulation of fundamental particles in a nuclear reactor, a particle accelerator, or the explosion of an atomic bomb; ...
, and the first isolation of a weighable amount of an artificially produced
isotope of any element."
The U.S.
Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-relat ...
remediated Jones Laboratory in the 1980s by studying and removing almost all of the building's
World War II-era radioactive waste. The remediation took place in 1982, 1983, and 1987.
Although room 405 looks nothing like the original condition, the lobby of the laboratory maintains a collection of the specialized equipment used to perform the measurements. Although the building's basement and ground floor were significantly damaged by an explosion in 1973, Room 405 was not affected.
References
{{UChicago, history
School buildings completed in 1929
Jones, George Herbert
George Herbert Jones Laboratory
National Historic Landmarks in Chicago
1929 establishments in Illinois