The Disappearing Spoon Chp. 7

The Disappearing Spoon Chapter 7

Summary:

It first starts off by talking about the ideas scientists had when thinking about the names they should give to newly discovered elements, even how just the naming of an element would become involved in the cold war. It then goes into talking about a man in 1940 named Edwin McMillan and how he created the very first transuranic element and named it neptunium. Edwin and several other scientists then once again discover yet another element and decide to name it  plutonium; years later they start experimenting on the element plutonium and discover two more elements. In 1949, the Berkeley team then discover two different elements and name them after their university, but when they called mayor to tell them the news, they didn’t care at all about it. After they discovered elements 99 and 100, the Berkeley team then started experimenting to create element 101; it was in 1955 that their work paid out and had created element 101. Over the next several years they also discovered elements 102 and 103.

After that information was given, it then starts talking about Russia and what people thought about the Russians and how they are. Then it starts talking about how Joseph Stalin made anybody who performed experiments and thought differently about science would be punished; he even hired a ‘scientist’ to disagree with anything that was different from who Joseph thought. It would continue to talk about just how much of an ignorant man Joseph Stalin was and how badly he treated the scientists there in Russia. One scientist in particular was smart, but also very loyal to Joseph Stalin, his name is Georgy Flyorov. Georgy had seen many of his colleagues killed and found out how others were able to create their own elements. Then it goes back to the Berkeley team and shows that people across the world fought each other because of the names that were given to several elements. Nobody wanted to agree with the terms others put out until finally in 1996 a list of names for the elements 104-109 came out whether or not people liked it.

Reflection:

Overall, I saw no problems with this chapter, but I wasn’t very into reading the chapter all that much. In this chapter I liked reading how the names for the latest elements came to be and how it mainly revolved around the Berkeley team and what they did. I didn’t dislike anything about the chapter, but sadly I just wasn’t very into reading it; I felt like the previous chapters were more interesting than this one. While reading this chapter, however, I learned lots of things that I haven’t heard of before; for instance, I learned that scientists in Russia during the 1940-70’s were pretty much hunted down and that if anybody went against Joseph Stalin, they pretty much got killed. I also learned how several element names came to be and I never noticed before just how ignorant people used to be and just how much distrust there was. Overall, I enjoyed learning the information there was in this chapter, but I wasn’t as interested as was in the previous ones.

Guided Questions:

1. Pre-Reading: Identify as many elements as you can that are named after places. Do the same for elements named after people.

People:

Fermium (Enrico Fermi), Curium (Pierre and Marie Curie), Einsteinium (Albert Einstein), Bohrium (Niels Bohr), Flerovium (Georgy Flerov), Copernicium (Nicolaus Copernicus), Meitnerium (Lise Meitner), Hahnium (Otto Hahn), Gadolinium (Johan Gadolin), Mendelevium (Dmitri Mendeleev), Gallium (Gallis and Lecoq de Boisbaudran), Rutherfordium (Ernest Rutherford), Nobelium (Alfred Nobel), Seaborgium (Glenn T. Seaborg), Samarium (Smarsky-Bukjovets), and Roentgenium (Wilhelm Roentgen).

Places:

Americium (America), Francium (France), Germanium (Germany), Californium (California), Polonium (Poland), Strontium (Strontian), Copper (Cyrus), Scandium (Scandinavia), and Berkelium (Berkeley).

2. Explain why the elements at the bottom of the periodic table are not really discovered so much as made. How is an element made?

The elements in the bottom of the periodic table are elements that are mainly created than found because of how unstable they are; their unstableness makes it almost completely impossible to find any and creating it is far more easier than looking for it. Also elements could be created by literally smashing elements together to create a different one.

3. How did Stalin thwart scientific progress in Russia?

Joseph Stalin wasn’t able to comprehend just how science works and made it illegal to do anything that involved science, besides the things that he did understand and or liked.

4. Explain the “cold war of the elements” between the U.S. and Russia. Why were claims to have made an element often controversial?

The “cold war of the elements” between the U.S. and Russia was pretty much a race to find elements that they could use to create powerful weapons. Plus, it was controversial to make claims about creating an element because during the time people wanted to find more uses with the elements that were already discovered.