Adapted from an image by Department of Energy. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Public Affairs Department. Strategic Resources Office. Photography Services. 2012- (Most Recent) (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Stanley Gerald Thompson
Discovered berkelium (1949) and californium (1950).
Elements
In December 1949 Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg, at Berkeley, fired alpha particles at americium in the cyclotron and made element 97. They named it berkelium, after Berkeley.
In 1950 Stanley Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg, at Berkeley, fired alpha particles at a few micrograms of curium and made about 5,000 atoms of a new element. They named it californium, after the state and its university.
Keep exploring
Where the dates and stories on this page come from; each event on the timeline links to its own source.
- BerkeliumRoyal Society of Chemistry
- CaliforniumRoyal Society of Chemistry
- Stanley Gerald ThompsonWikipedia