Friday, November 23, 2012

Fermium - Element of the Week from 11/16 -11/23



            Fermium is a synthetic, radioactive element with the atomic number of 100.  It gets is name from the Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, who developed the first nuclear reactor. It has 19 isotopes, the most stable with a half-life of around 100 days and the least with a half-life of only microseconds.
            The discovery of fermium is an interesting story. It was originally discovered in the debris from the first hydrogen bomb (known as Ivy Mike) test in 1952. These records were classified until 1955 because of tensions with Russia, and the researchers who identified it at the University of California - Berkeley scrambled to discover it through more civilian means.
            They were able to accomplish this and published their findings in 1954, but another group had done the same. After the sealed records were declassified, the discovery went to the research group at Berkeley.
            There are no uses for Fermium outside of basic scientific research, and there are no known concentrations of it on Earth because any of it that naturally occurred has since decayed into other substances. 

No comments:

Post a Comment