The Plutonium Story: The Journals of Professor Glenn T. Seaborg 1939-1946

by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ronald L. Kathren, Jerry B. Gough

This book chronicles on a day-to-day basis the astounding story of the discovery of plutonium and the feverish activities to unlock its secrets and enhance its productivity to the levels necessary for the building of an atomic bomb in World War II by its discoverer, Professor Glenn T. Seaborg. Seaborg, who shared the 1951 nobel Prize in Chemistry with his colleague Edwin T. McMillan, was a meticulous diarist whose detailed records of thousands of pages have been edited and supplied with accompanying notes by a trio consisting of a professional scientist with a strong interest in history and two professional historians of science. The work provides not only the step by step description of the scientific activities and the thought processes of Seaborg and his team throughout the war years, but also gives keen insight into the operation of the Manhattan District and of the scientists who played an important role in its functions. Virtually all of the players are identified in the annotations, which also serve to explain the significance of key events and findings as well as obscure or arcane scientific procedures. The professional chemist or nuclear scientist will find this an exciting and compelling saga of a great scientific discovery, carried out in a bygone era of unfettered and productive science that is not likely to occur again. The copious annotations and identifications not only add to the story, but make this a vital and necessary reading and reference source not only for the historian of science, but for those interested in the behind the scenes history of World War II and the Manhattan District.

920 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Glenn Theodore Seaborg (April 19, 1912 – February 25, 1999) was an American scientist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.

Seaborg spent most of his career as an educator and research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, serving as a professor, and, between 1958 and 1961, as the university's second chancellor. He advised ten US Presidents – from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton – on nuclear policy and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science. Throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control. He was a signatory to the Franck Report and contributed to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He was a well-known advocate of science education and federal funding for pure research. Toward the end of the Eisenhower administration, he was the principal author of the Seaborg Report on academic science, and, as a member of President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education, he was a key contributor to its 1983 report "A Nation at Risk".

Seaborg was the principal or co-discoverer of ten elements: plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and element 106, which, while he was still living, was named seaborgium in his honor. He also discovered more than 100 atomic isotopes and is credited with important contributions to the chemistry of plutonium, originally as part of the Manhattan Project where he developed the extraction process used to isolate the plutonium fuel for the second atomic bomb. Early in his career, he was a pioneer in nuclear medicine and discovered isotopes of elements with important applications in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, most notably iodine-131, which is used in the treatment of thyroid disease. In addition to his theoretical work in the development of the actinide concept, which placed the actinide series beneath the lanthanide series on the periodic table, he postulated the existence of super-heavy elements in the transactinide and superactinide series.

After sharing the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan, he received approximately 50 honorary doctorates and numerous other awards and honors. The list of things named after Seaborg ranges from his atomic element to an asteroid. He was a prolific author, penning numerous books and 500 journal articles, often in collaboration with others. He was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the person with the longest entry in Who's Who in America.

During his lifetime, Seaborg is said to have been the author or co-author of numerous books and 500 scientific journal articles, many of them brief reports on fast-breaking discoveries in nuclear science while other subjects, most notably the actinide concept, represented major theoretical contributions in the history of science. He held more than 40 patents – among them the only patents ever issued for chemical elements, americium and curium, and received more than 50 doctorates and honorary degrees in his lifetime. At one time, he was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the longest entry in Marquis Who's Who in America. In February 2005, he was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. His papers are in the Library of Congress.

Seaborgium is the only element to have been named after a living person.