Albert Ghiorso’s Followers (2)

Albert Ghiorso

Born

in Vallejo, California, The United States

July 15, 1915

Died

December 26, 2010

Website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ghiorso

Genre

Science, Chemistry, Nuclear Science

Influences

Glenn T. Seaborg ...more

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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 elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned five decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.

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 Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned five decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.

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.

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. He also had brief research interests in the free quark experiment of William Fairbank of Stanford, in the discovery of element 43, the electron disk accelerator, among others.

Albert Ghiorso is credited with having co-discovered the following elements:

Americium ca. 1945 (element 95)
Curium in 1944 (element 96)
Berkelium in 1949 (element 97)
Californium in 1950 (element 98)
Einsteinium in 1952 (element 99)
Fermium in 1953 (element 100)
Mendelevium in 1955 (element 101)
Nobelium in 1958–59 (element 102)
Lawrencium in 1961 (element 103)
Rutherfordium in 1969 (element 104)
Dubnium in 1970 (element 105)
Seaborgium 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) 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. ...more

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Albert Ghiorso’s books

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	Transuranium People: The Inside Story 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2000	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Proceedings of the Third Conference on Reactions between Complex Nuclei: Held at Asilomar (Pacific Grove, California) April 14–18, 1963 by Albert Ghiorso (Editor), R.M. Diamond (Editor), H. E. Conzett (Editor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Proceedings of the Third Conference on Reactions between Complex Nuclei: Held at Asilomar (Pacific Grove, California) April 14–18, 1963 by Albert Ghiorso (Editor), R.M. Diamond (Editor), H. E. Conzett (Editor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Proceedings of the Third Conference on Reactions between Complex Nuclei: Held at Asilomar (Pacific Grove, California) April 14–18, 1963 by Albert Ghiorso (Editor), R.M. Diamond (editor), H. E. Conzett (editor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Albert Ghiorso’s Followers (2)

Albert Ghiorso

Combine EditionsAlbert Ghiorso’s books

Combine Editions
Albert Ghiorso’s books