Seaborg was the principal or co-discoverer of ten elements:plutonium,americium,curium,berkelium,californium,einsteinium,fermium,mendelevium,nobelium and element 106, which, while he was still living, was namedseaborgium in his honor. He said about this naming, "This is the greatest honor ever bestowed upon me—even better, I think, than winning the Nobel Prize. Future students of chemistry, in learning about the periodic table, may have reason to ask why the element was named for me, and thereby learn more about my work."[5] He also discovered more than 100isotopes of transuranium elements and is credited with important contributions to the chemistry of plutonium, originally as part of theManhattan Project where he developed the extraction process used to isolate the plutonium fuel for theimplosion-type atomic bomb. Early in his career, he was a pioneer innuclear medicine and discovered isotopes of elements with important applications in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, includingiodine-131, which is used in the treatment ofthyroid disease. In addition to his theoretical work in the development of the actinide concept, which placed the actinide series beneath thelanthanide series on the periodic table, he postulated the existence of super-heavy elements in thetransactinide andsuperactinide series.
Glenn Theodore Seaborg was born inIshpeming, Michigan, on April 19, 1912, the son of Herman Theodore (Ted) and Selma Olivia Erickson Seaborg. He had one sister, Jeanette, who was two years younger. His family spoke Swedish at home. When Glenn Seaborg was a boy, the family moved toLos Angeles County, California, settling in a subdivision calledHome Gardens, later annexed to the City ofSouth Gate, California. About this time he changed the spelling of his first name from Glen to Glenn.[6]
Seaborg kept a daily journal from 1927 until he suffered a stroke in 1998.[7] As a youth, Seaborg was both a devoted sports fan and an avid movie buff. His mother encouraged him to become a bookkeeper as she felt his literary interests were impractical. He did not take an interest in science until his junior year when he was inspired by Dwight Logan Reid, a chemistry and physics teacher atDavid Starr Jordan High School inWatts.[8]
Seaborg graduated from Jordan in 1929 at the top of his class and received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in chemistry at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, in 1933.[6] He worked his way through school as a stevedore and a laboratory assistant atFirestone.[9] Seaborg received his PhD in chemistry at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, in 1937 with a doctoral thesis on the "Interaction of Fast Neutrons with Lead",[10][11] in which he coined the term "nuclearspallation".[12]
Seaborg was a member of the professional chemistry fraternityAlpha Chi Sigma. As a graduate student in the 1930s Seaborg performedwet chemistry research for his advisorGilbert Newton Lewis,[12] and published three papers with him on the theory ofacids andbases.[13][14][15] Seaborg studied the textApplied Radiochemistry byOtto Hahn, of theKaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, and it had a major impact on his developing interests as a research scientist. For several years, Seaborg conducted important research in artificialradioactivity using the Lawrencecyclotron at UC Berkeley. He was excited to learn from others thatnuclear fission was possible—but also chagrined, as his own research might have led him to the same discovery.[16]
Seaborg also became an adept interlocutor of Berkeley physicistRobert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had a daunting reputation and often answered a junior colleague's question before it had even been stated. Often the question answered was more profound than the one asked, but of little practical help. Seaborg learned to state his questions to Oppenheimer quickly and succinctly.[17]
Seaborg remained at the University of California, Berkeley, for post-doctoral research. He followedFrederick Soddy's work investigatingisotopes and contributed to the discovery of more than 100 isotopes of elements. Using one of Lawrence's advanced cyclotrons,John Livingood, Fred Fairbrother, and Seaborg created a new isotope of iron,iron-59 in 1937. Iron-59 was useful in the studies of thehemoglobin in human blood. In 1938, Livingood and Seaborg collaborated (as they did for five years) to create an important isotope ofiodine,iodine-131, which is still used to treatthyroid disease.[18] (Many years later, it was credited with prolonging the life of Seaborg's mother.) As a result of these and other contributions, Seaborg is regarded as a pioneer in nuclear medicine and is one of its most prolific discoverers of isotopes.[19]
In 1939 he became an instructor in chemistry at Berkeley, was promoted to assistant professor in 1941 and professor in 1945.[20] University of California, Berkeley, physicistEdwin McMillan led a team that discovered element 93, which he namedneptunium in 1940. In November, he was persuaded to leave Berkeley temporarily to assist with urgent research inradar technology. Since Seaborg and his colleagues had perfected McMillan's oxidation-reduction technique for isolating neptunium, he asked McMillan for permission to continue the research and search for element 94. McMillan agreed to the collaboration.[21] Seaborg first reportedalpha decay proportionate to only a fraction of the element 93 under observation. The first hypothesis for thisalpha particle accumulation was contamination by uranium, which produces alpha-decay particles; analysis of alpha-decay particles ruled this out. Seaborg then postulated that a distinct alpha-producing element was being formed from element 93.[22]
In February 1941, Seaborg and his collaborators producedplutonium-239 through the bombardment of uranium. In their experiments bombarding uranium withdeuterons, they observed the creation of neptunium, element 93. But it then underwent beta-decay, forming a new element, plutonium, with 94 protons. Plutonium is fairly stable, but undergoes alpha-decay, which explained the presence of alpha particles coming from neptunium.[22] Thus, on March 28, 1941, Seaborg, physicistEmilio Segrè and Berkeley chemistJoseph W. Kennedy were able to show thatplutonium (then known only as element 94) wasfissile, an important distinction that was crucial to the decisions made in directingManhattan Project research.[23] In 1966, Room 307 ofGilman Hall on the campus at the Berkeley, where Seaborg did his work, was declared a USNational Historic Landmark.[24]
On April 19, 1942, Seaborg reached Chicago and joined the chemistry group at theMetallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project at theUniversity of Chicago, whereEnrico Fermi and his group would later converturanium-238 to plutonium-239 in a controllednuclear chain reaction. Seaborg's role was to figure out how to extract the tiny bit of plutonium from the mass ofuranium. Plutonium-239 was isolated in visible amounts using a transmutation reaction on August 20, 1942, and weighed on September 10, 1942, in Seaborg'sChicago laboratory. He was responsible for the multi-stage chemical process that separated, concentrated and isolated plutonium. This process was further developed at theClinton Engineering Works inOak Ridge, Tennessee, and then entered full-scale production at theHanford Engineer Works, inRichland, Washington.[26]
Seaborg's theoretical development of theactinide concept resulted in a redrawing of the periodic table into its current configuration with theactinide series appearing below thelanthanide series. Seaborg developed the chemical elements americium and curium while in Chicago. He managed to secure patents for both elements. His patent on curium never proved commercially viable because of the element's short half-life, but americium is commonly used in householdsmoke detectors and thus provided a good source of royalty income to Seaborg in later years. Prior to the test of the first nuclear weapon, Seaborg joined with several other leading scientists in a written statement known as theFranck Report (secret at the time but since published) unsuccessfully calling on President Truman to conduct a public demonstration of the atomic bomb witnessed by the Japanese.[27]
Professor and Chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley
After the conclusion of World War II and the Manhattan Project, Seaborg was eager to return to academic life and university research free from the restrictions of wartime secrecy. In 1946, he added to his responsibilities as a professor by heading the nuclear chemistry research at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory operated by the University of California on behalf of theUnited States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Seaborg was named one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Men in America" by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1947 (along withRichard Nixon and others). Seaborg was elected aMember of the National Academy of Sciences in 1948. From 1954 to 1961 he served as associate director of the radiation laboratory. He was appointed by President Truman to serve as a member of the General Advisory Committee of the AEC, an assignment he retained until 1960.[28]
Seaborg served aschancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1958 to 1961. His term coincided with a relaxation ofMcCarthy-era restrictions on students' freedom of expression that had begun under his predecessor,Clark Kerr.[29] In October 1958, Seaborg announced that the university had relaxed its prior prohibitions on political activity on a trial basis,[30] and the ban oncommunists speaking on campus was lifted. This paved the way for theFree Speech Movement of 1964–65.[29]
Seaborg was an enthusiastic supporter of Cal's sports teams. San Francisco columnistHerb Caen was fond of pointing out that Seaborg's surname is an anagram of "Go Bears", a popular cheer at UC Berkeley.[31] Seaborg was proud of the fact that theCal Bears won their first and onlyNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship in 1959, while he was chancellor. Thefootball team also won the conference title and played in theRose Bowl that year.[32] He served on the Faculty Athletic Committee for several years and was the co-author of a book,Roses from the Ashes: Breakup and Rebirth in Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletics (2000), concerning thePacific Coast Conference recruiting scandal, and the founding of what is now thePac-12, in which he played a role in restoring confidence in the integrity of collegiate sports.[32][33]
Seaborg served on thePresident's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) during theEisenhower administration. PSAC produced a report on "Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government", also known as the "Seaborg Report", in November 1960, that urged greater federal funding of science.[34] In 1959, he helped found the BerkeleySpace Sciences Laboratory with Clark Kerr.[35]
From left to right: Chairman Seaborg, President Kennedy, Secretary McNamara on March 23, 1962. By this point, McNamara and Seaborg had been discussing the AEC's studies on the ecological effects of nuclear war and "clean" weapon alternatives. (Courtesy:National Security Archive, Original:National Archives)
After appointment by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy and confirmation by theUnited States Senate, Seaborg was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1961 to 1971. His pending appointment byPresident-elect Kennedy was nearly derailed in late 1960 when members of the Kennedy transition team learned that Seaborg had been listed in aU.S. News & World Report article as a member of "Nixon's Idea Men". Seaborg said that as a lifetimeDemocrat he was baffled when the article appeared associating him with outgoing Vice President Richard Nixon, aRepublican whom Seaborg considered a casual acquaintance.[36]
During the early 1960s, Seaborg became concerned with the ecological and biological effects of nuclear weapons, especially those that would impact human life significantly. In response, he commissioned the Technical Analysis Branch of the AEC to study these matters further.[37] Seaborg's provision for these innovative studies led the US Government to more seriously pursue the development and possible use of "clean" nuclear weapons.[38]
While chairman of the AEC, Seaborg participated on the negotiating team for theLimited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), in which the US, UK, andUSSR agreed to ban all above-ground test detonations of nuclear weapons. Seaborg considered his contributions to the achievement of the LTBT as one of his greatest accomplishments. Despite strict rules from the Soviets about photography at the signing ceremony, Seaborg used a tiny camera to take a close-up photograph of Soviet PremierNikita Khrushchev as he signed the treaty.[39]
Seaborg enjoyed a close relationship with PresidentLyndon Johnson and influenced the administration to pursue theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[40] Seaborg was called to the White House in the first week of the Nixon Administration in January 1969 to advise President Richard Nixon on his first diplomatic crisis involving the Soviets and nuclear testing. He clashed with Nixon presidential adviserJohn Ehrlichman over the treatment of a Jewish scientist,Zalman Shapiro, whom the Nixon administration suspected of leaking nuclear secrets to Israel.[41]
Seaborg published several books and journal articles during his tenure at the AEC. He predicted the existence of elements beyond those on the periodic table,[42] thetransactinide series and thesuperactinide series of undiscovered synthetic elements. While most of these theoretical future elements have extremely short half-lives and thus no expected practical applications, he also hypothesized the existence of stable super-heavy isotopes of certain elements in anisland of stability.[43] Seaborg served as chairman of the AEC until 1971.[44]
Seaborg (right) with marine biologistDixy Lee Ray on September 17, 1968
Following his service as Chairman of the AEC, Seaborg returned to UC Berkeley where he was awarded the position of University Professor. At the time, there had been fewer University Professors at UC Berkeley than Nobel Prize winners. He also served as Chairman of the Lawrence Hall of Science where he became the principal investigator for Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS)[45] working with director Jacqueline Barber. Seaborg served as chancellor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, from 1958 to 1961, and served as president of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972 and as president of theAmerican Chemical Society in 1976.[46]
In 1980, hetransmuted several thousandatoms ofbismuth-209 into gold (197 Au) at theLawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His experimental technique, using the lab'sBevalacparticle accelerator, was able to removeprotons andneutrons from the bismuth atoms by bombarding it with carbon and neon nuclei traveling near the speed of light.[47] Seaborg's technique would have been far too expensive to enable routine manufacturing of gold, but his work was close to the mythicalPhilosopher's Stone.[48][49] As gold has four fewer protons and (taking the only naturally occurring bulk isotopes of either) eight fewer neutrons than bismuth, a total of twelve nucleons have to be removed from the bismuth nucleus to produce gold using Seaborg's method.
A Nation at Risk delivered a wake up call for our education system. It described stark realities like a significant number of functionally illiterate high schoolers, plummeting student performance, and international competitors breathing down our necks. It was a warning, a reproach, and a call to arms.[53]
Seaborg lived most of his later life inLafayette, California, where he devoted himself to editing and publishing the journals that documented both his early life and later career. He rallied a group of scientists who criticized the science curriculum in the state of California, which he viewed as far too socially oriented and not nearly focused enough on hard science. California GovernorPete Wilson appointed Seaborg to head a committee that proposed changes to California's science curriculum despite outcries from labor organizations and others.[54]
In 1942, Seaborg marriedHelen Griggs, the secretary of physicistErnest Lawrence. Under wartime pressure, Seaborg had moved to Chicago while engaged to Griggs. When Seaborg returned to accompany Griggs for the journey back to Chicago, friends expected them to marry in Chicago. But, eager to be married, Seaborg and Griggs impulsively got off the train in the town ofCaliente, Nevada, for what they thought would be a quick wedding. When they asked for City Hall, they found Caliente had none—they would have to travel 25 miles (40 km) north toPioche, thecounty seat. With no car, this was no easy feat, but one of Caliente's newest deputy sheriffs turned out to be a recent graduate of the Cal Berkeley chemistry department and was more than happy to do a favor for Seaborg. The deputy sheriff arranged for the wedding couple to ride up and back to Pioche in a mail truck. The witnesses at the Seaborg wedding were a clerk and a janitor.[55] Glenn Seaborg and Helen Griggs Seaborg had seven children, of whom the first, Peter Glenn Seaborg, died in 1997 (his twin Paulette having died in infancy).[56] The others were Lynne Seaborg Cobb,David Seaborg, Steve Seaborg, Eric Seaborg, and Dianne Seaborg.[57]
Seaborg was an avid hiker. Upon becoming Chairman of the AEC in 1961, he commenced taking daily hikes through a trail that he blazed at the headquarters site inGermantown, Maryland. He frequently invited colleagues and visitors to accompany him, and the trail became known as the "Glenn Seaborg Trail." He and his wife Helen are credited with blazing a 12-mile (19 km) trail in the East Bay area near their home in Lafayette, California. This trail has since become a part of the American Hiking Association's cross-country network of trails. Seaborg and his wife walked the trail network fromContra Costa County all the way to the California–Nevada border.[58][59]
There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician.
Seaborg kept a close bond to his Swedish origin. He visited Sweden every so often, and his family were members of the SwedishPemer Genealogical Society, a family association open for every descendant of the Pemer family, a Swedish family with German origin, from which Seaborg was descended on his mother's side.[63] (In recent years, after both men's passings, it has been discovered that physicist colleagueEdward J. Lofgren was also descended from the Pemer family.)[64] Seaborg even responded to the Swedish king's Nobel prize toast in his mother's native region's dialect,[65] which he described as "It was as if a Swede had ''y'alled" in English with a Southern Accent."".[66]
On August 24, 1998, while in Boston to attend a meeting by the American Chemical Society, Seaborg suffered a stroke, which led to his death six months later on February 25, 1999, at his home in Lafayette, 58 years and two days to the date that he discoveredPlutonium.[67]
During his lifetime, Seaborg is said to have been the author or co-author of numerous books and 500 scientific journal articles, many of them brief reports on fast-breaking discoveries in nuclear science while other subjects, most notably the actinide concept, represented major theoretical contributions in thehistory of science. He held more than 40 patents—among them the only patents ever issued for chemical elements, americium and curium, and received more than 50 doctorates and honorary degrees in his lifetime.[68] At one time, he was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the longest entry inMarquisWho's Who in America. In February 2005, he was posthumously inducted into theNational Inventors Hall of Fame.[44] In April 2011 the executive council of theCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) selected Seaborg for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.[69] His papers are in theLibrary of Congress.[70]
^Office of the Chancellor."Past Chancellors". University of California, Berkeley.Archived from the original on December 12, 2015. RetrievedDecember 24, 2015.
^Lewis, G. N.; Seaborg, Glenn T. (August 1940). "The acidity of aromatic nitro compounds toward amines. The effect of double chelation".Journal of the American Chemical Society.62 (8):2122–2124.Bibcode:1940JAChS..62.2122L.doi:10.1021/ja01865a057.ISSN0002-7863.
^Seaborg, Glenn Theodore (2001).Adventures in the atomic age: from Watts to Washington (1st ed.). Canada: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. p. 150.ISBN9780374299910.
Coffey, Patrick (2008).Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-532134-0.
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