Stanley G. Thompson

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Stanley G. Thompson, June 1964

Stanley Gerald Thompson (March 9, 1912 - July 16, 1976 ) was an American nuclear chemist . Thompson discovered together with Glenn T. Seaborg - for which Seaborg received the Nobel Prize in 1951 with Edwin McMillan - and other transuranic elements , such as Berkelium and Californium . Overall, he was significantly involved in the discovery of five transuranic elements (in addition to the americium , curium , and einsteinium mentioned ). He worked as a nuclear chemist at Rad Lab (later the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ) from 1946 until his death in 1976.

life and work

Thompson graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1934 and then went to the Standard Oil of California laboratory.

At the end of 1942 Seaborg brought Thompson to the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, where the industrial chemical production of plutonium was to be developed. Thompson developed the bismuth phosphate process for the large-scale industrial production of plutonium in just a few months, and monitored its implementation at the Hanford site . Thompson also directed the training of hundreds of chemists in the process there. In just two years, he succeeded in building up plutonium production, which made it possible to build the plutonium bombs in Los Alamos.

Thompson then returned to Seaborg in Chicago and a year later to Berkeley and developed the ion exchange- adsorption - elution method , which is important for the isolation of the transuranic elements newly discovered in the Berkeley group . The properties of americium and curium were then the subject of his dissertation in 1948 at the University of California, Berkeley (Nuclear and chemical properties of americium and curium). In 1949/50 he led the team that discovered Berkelium and Californium (and he was involved in large- scale production with Burris B. Cunningham in 1958 ). He was also involved in the discovery of Einsteinium , Fermium (both from the remains of the hydrogen bomb explosion Mike November 1952) and Mendelevium .

In 1966 he was visiting the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. In Berkeley he looked for the elements in the stability island around the atomic number 114 in gold from the 1960s , where they wanted to find their predicted spontaneous splitting with neutron detectors , shielded from cosmic rays in a railway tunnel in the hills of Berkeley. But they found nothing. In the 1970s he worked at the HILAC heavy ion accelerator in Berkeley with heavy ion reactions in nuclear physics.

Thompson died in 1976 of cancer allegedly caused while working on industrial-scale plutonium isolation in Chicago and Hanford.

Seaborg described him in an obituary as his friend (they were both about the same age, attended the same high school in the Watts district of Los Angeles and studied together at UCLA, at times as roommates) and acknowledged him with the words: “His radiochemical research during World War II can only be compared to the isolation of radium by Pierre and Marie Curie, and its leading role in the discovery of five transuranic elements must be regarded as one of the leading chemical achievements of its time. "

He had been married to Alice Thompson since 1938 and had one daughter.

Awards

Fonts

  • SG Thompson, A. Ghiorso, GT Seaborg; The new element berkelium (atomic number 97) , Phys. Rev., 80, 1950, p. 781, 1950
  • SG Thompson, K. Street Jr., A. Ghiorso, GT Seaborg The new element californium (atomic number 98) , Phys. Rev. 80, 1950, p. 790, 1950
  • SG Thompson, BB Cunningham, GT Seaborg Chemical properties of berkelium , J. Am. Chem. Soc. 72, 1950, p. 2798
  • SG Thompson, BG Harvey, GR Choppin, GT Seaborg Chemical properties of elements 99 and 100 , J. Am. Chem. Soc. 76, 1954, p. 6229
  • SG Thompson The collected scientific papers of Stanley Gerald Thompson (1912-1976) , 2 volumes, compiled by Glenn T. Seaborg, University of California Bancroft Library

Most of his reports and lab books during the Second World War are still classified.

literature

  • Glenn T. Seaborg Stanley G. Thompson - a Chemist's Chemist , Chemtech, July 1978, p. 408, pdf

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanley Gerald Thompson. Retrieved September 17, 2013 (dk).
  2. July 16 Science History. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 5, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / chemistry.about.com
  3. His radiochemical research during World War II rivals in importance the isolation of Radium by Pierre and Marie Curie, and his leadership in the discovery of five transuranium elements must rank among the leading chemical accomplishments of his time , Seaborg, Nachruf in Chemtech, July 1978 , P. 408
  4. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - Stanley G. Thompson. In: gf.org. Retrieved February 12, 2016 .

Web links