Seaborg, Glenn

Seaborg, Glenn (Theodore)

(born April 19, 1912, Ishpeming, Mich., U.S.—died Feb. 25, 1999, Lafayette, Calif.) U.S. nuclear chemist. Seaborg pursued graduate study at the University of California at Berkeley. Working with John Livingood, Emilio Segré, and others, he discovered some 100 isotopes, including many that would prove to be of major importance, such as iodine-131 and technetium-99. However, his best-known work involved the isolation and identification of transuranium elements. In 1941 he and his colleagues discovered plutonium. He went on to discover and isolate the elements americum, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium (atomic numbers 95–102). He joined the Manhattan Project in 1942 and was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, although he pleaded, unsuccessfully, with Pres. Truman not to use the bomb on civilian targets. He shared a 1951 Nobel Prize with Edwin Mattison McMillan (1907–91). Prediction of new elements' chemical properties and placement in the periodic table was helped greatly by an important organizing principle enunciated by Seaborg, the actinide concept. He served as head of the Atomic Energy Commission (1961–71). A strong advocate of nuclear disarmament, he led the negotiations that eventuated in the Limited Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963) and later played a leading role in the passage of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. In 1997 his name was given to the new element seaborgium, the first time a living person had been so honoured.