Portrait of Charles D. Coryell

Adapted from ⁠an image by Christian A. Coryell (GFDL), via Wikimedia Commons. This version is shared under the same licence.

1912–1971

Charles D. Coryell

Discovered promethium in 1945.

Element

61PmPromethium
1945

Element 61 left a gap in the table for decades because none of it survives in nature. In 1945 Jacob Marinsky, Lawrence Glendenin and Charles Coryell, at Oak Ridge, separated it from the fission products of a nuclear reactor. It was named promethium, after Prometheus.

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