The Disappearing Spoon Chapter Summary

Sidharth Sirdeshmukh
1/8/2016
Mr. Murphy
AP Chemistry, 3&4 Period
Disappearing Spoon Chapter 7 Analysis
The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean, calls attention to parallels among various groups and subsets of elements, what these elements are useful for, and the history behind them, using a profusion of historical examples, and personal anecdotes to back up and validate his claims. The author, Sam Kean has had an affinity for the Periodic Table of the Elements from a very young age. The time he spent goggling at mercury from broken thermometers, as well as his study of the elements in recreational reading as well as college texts, gave Kean the general interest and aptness to write this novel. Chapter 7 of the book, Extending the Table, Expanding

the Cold War, discusses the clash between Soviet powers, and the United States that occurred after WWII, when both countries were competing to discover/name new elements as quickly as possible.
Glenn Seaborg was among the first, in the 1940s, to “create elements”. When his prominent mentor, Edwin McMillan, was chosen to assist with American efforts in WWII, Seaborg was left undisturbed to create, in the same way Macmillan had been when he discovered Neptunium earlier during the decade. By engaging with proprietary methods Macmillan had taught to Seaborg, Seaborg deliberately filtered his sample of Neptunium (element 93), and purified into a sample only mere atoms large, and stripped electrons off of the sample until it reached a charge of +7. By doing this, he was able to create element 94.
Eventually, McMillan’s traditional methods were altered by Seaborg, and he began using speedier Alpha Particles to strip atoms of electrons more efficiently. Specifically, Alpha Particles are helium nuclei, so they had the ability to be directed and accelerated by particles of opposite charge, rather than simply having physically accelerated nuclei beamed at atoms, which was slow and inefficient all around. This change in methods helped Seaborg and his team discover element 101, Mendelevium.
Mendelevium is a precarious element, as when allowed to decay, it grows more positive with protons, and can revert to a radioactive state in an instant. The discovery of this element, led to the discovery of 5 more trans-elements (meaning, they were discovered by using samples of Mendelevium), giving the element its great significance (Berkeley Lab, 2011). Additionally, this element is the only one that pays homage to the Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the first table of elements (Chopin, 2003).
The methods used for isolating Einsteinium, and then staging it with gold particles, and finally detecting the presence of the new created element were extremely advanced during that time period.

In addition, Seaborg and his team used the University of California’s Radiation Laboratory’s Cyclotron to perform the experiment once the samples had been prepared. The machine functions by attracting and repelling charged samples (ions) towards and away from the outer walls of the machine, to induce a spiral effect on the sample. When the sample speeds up, and moves farther towards the outside of the chamber, collides at high speed with a detector, and at that instant has proton(s) removed from the sample creating the new element (American Institute of Physics,

2016).
To prepare the samples, Seaborg’s team needed to isolate samples of previously prepared Einsteinium. At the time, einsteinium was a commodity, as it had been created from plutonium that had been struck by beamed neutrons, and only microgram quantities were available for experimenting with. Kean, the author of the book, notes that at this point in the experiment, most labs would have reacted the atoms with a variety of atoms to classify the new element based on chemical reactions that would and would not occur. However, Seaborg and his team continued onwards using their own methods.
Once the particles were isolated, they had to be set on gold foil to make sure that there was adequate surface area for the particle to explode, and disintegrate against the detector of the Cyclotron that was being used.

Unlike the Rutherford gold-foil experiment where Alpha Particles were beamed at foil to test for the presence of protons in the nuclei, the gold itself was being hurled at the detector within the Cyclotron. Therefor, the rules and applications derived from the Rutherford experiment were not in play for the Mendelevium-discovery experiment.
The element was finally discovered when fire alarms on the University of California campus rang, due to Seaborg’s lab technician’s crafty idea to wire the Cyclotron detector to the alarm system on the campus. The rings confirmed the discovery of Mendelevium, and gave way to the fabrication of 5 other elements thereafter.
Overall, it is evident that the use of new methods proposed by Seaborg and his team helped to beget Mendelevium and 5 other trans-elements that followed. Without the use of new technology like the Cyclotron, particle isolation and setting methods like the gold foil usage, and general ingenuity by the University of California team, the Periodic Table of Elements that we know today would not

exist.

Works Cited:
"In Memorian, Albert Ghiorso, 1915-2010 | Berkeley Lab." News Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2016.
"C&EN: IT'S ELEMENTAL: THE PERIODIC TABLE - MENDELEVIUM." ACS Publications Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2016.
"The First Cyclotrons - Ernest Lawrence and the Cyclotron: AIP History Center Web Exhibit." American Institute of Physics. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2016.
"Mendelevium - Elements Database." Periodic Table of Elements - Elements Database. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2016.