Adapted from an image by ORNL (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
1918–2008
Lawrence E. Glendenin
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.
Keep exploring
Where the dates and stories on this page come from; each event on the timeline links to its own source.
- Lawrence E. GlendeninEncyclopaedia Britannica
- PromethiumRoyal Society of Chemistry
- Lawrence E. GlendeninWikipedia