Our heritage of the elements
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Our Heritage of the Elements
DR.
GLENN
T. SEABORG
T h e r o l e of our h e r i t a g e of c h e m i c a l e l e m e n t s , natural and m a n - m a d e , in d e t e r m i n i n g our a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s throughout our h i s t o r y wilI be d e s c r i b e d . F r o m the Stone A g e , to the beginning of the r e c e n t e r a of understanding of t h e i r nature and until the p r e s e n t , m a s t e r y of the u t i l i z a t i o n of the e l e m e n t s has d e t e r m i n e d the d e s t i n y of n a t i o n s . W h e r e a s e v e n a c e n t u r y ago all but a tmndful of the e l e m e n t s w e r e m e r e c h e m i c a l c u r i o s i t i e s , a l m o s t a l l of this g r e a t h e r i t a g e is b e g i n n i n g to be put to u s e . T o d a y , with our a d v a n c e d state of k n o w l e d g e and the i n c e n t i v e of continuing our c r e a t i v e e v o l u t i o n of r e m a k i n g and fuIly u t i l i z i n g our e n v i r o n m e n t , we have s u f f i c i e n t p e r s p e c t i v e to a p p r e c i a t e just how r i c h and i m p o r t a n t is our l e g a c y of the c h e m i c a l e I e m e n t s . And w h e n the broad, r i c h , c o m p l e x s p e c t r u m of p r o p e r t i e s of the pure e l e m e n t s f a i l s short of our n e e d s , we find that we can obtain an e n o r m o u s v a r i e t y of p r o p e r t i e s by c o m b i n i n g or m i x i n g t h e m or s y n t h e s i z i n g new e l e m e n t s using the P e r i o d i c T a b l e as a guiding p r i n c i p l e . Our future p r o g r e s s and w e l l being w i l l depend in l a r g e part on l e a r n i n g m o r e about the c h e m i c a l e l e m e n t s and t h e i r c o m b i n a t i o n s . T h e s e new f r o n t i e r s continue to be f r o n t i e r s of the m i n d . DR. GLENN T. SEABORG is University Professor of Chemistry and Associate Director of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1958 to 1961 he was Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, having been on its faculty since 1939. During a leave of absence from the University from 1961 to 1971, Dr. Seaborg served as the Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, having first been appointed by President Kennedy and subsequently reappointed by Presidents Johnson and Nixon He also served under President Truman from 1946 to 1950 as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission's first General Advisory Committee, and under President Eisenhower from 1959 to 1961 on the President's Science Advisory Committee. During World War II, he headed the group at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory which devised the chemical extraction processes used in the production of plutonium for the Manhattan Project. In 1940-41, Dr. Seaborg co-discovered element 94 (plutonium), the first of ten transuranium elements which he and his co-workers discoveredl He and his colleagues have discovered more than 100 isotopes throughout the periodic table. He also co-discovered the phenomenon of high energy
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