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GLENN SEABORG

Glenn Seaborg has made major contributions to science as a discoverer, administrator and educator. During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at E.O. Lawrence's lab in Berkeley and the University of Chicago, Seaborg discovered (or co-discovered) the elements plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium and nobelium, as well as a wide variety of radionuclides including iodine-131, technetium-99m, cobalt-60, cesium-137, and iron-55. Indeed, he helped configure the periodic table as we now know it by placing the actinide series under the lanthanide series. For his discoveries of the transuranic elements and his determination of their chemistry, Seaborg was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in chemistry. As an administrator, Seaborg guided the nation's nuclear programs for ten years while Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. As an educator, he has been tireless in his efforts to inform the public about the benefits of nuclear power and the use of radionuclides in medicine, industry and the biological and physical sciences. Recently, the discoverers of element 106 have recommended that it be named Seaborgium, in honor of Seaborg's life-long achievements in radiochemistry.

Index Of Figures In Radiation History