The Two Sides of Uranium

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Introduction
In today’s day and age many people around the world have become dependent on what seems like useless or needless things such as the internet and television. This is one of the negative effects of science and the technology that comes with it. Some of these technologies seem harmless, like cellphones and computers, but it seems as the years progress people want more and more power, literally and figuratively. The element uranium is a perfect example; this element has the power to do well in generating power for millions of people, and the power to do wrong in nuclear warfare.
The earth is made up of roughly 111 elements and combinations thereof, but only around 90 of the elements occur naturally. In 1789 Martin Klaproth discovered a new element and decided to name it after the newly discovered planet Uranus (Zoellner, 2009). This element called uranium is lithophilic and is the last natural element on the periodic table. It is the 92nd elements, containing 92 protons and an atomic mass of 238.0 grams (Cox, 1995). Uranium comes from the ores of uranite, canotite, and is present in only low concentrations of igneous rocks, such as granite. Uranium can also be seen in some glazes of pottery, as well as in the metals of armor-piercing weapons. This element also contains an extremely long half-life of over four billion years. This means that a majority of the uranium on earth today, is the exact same uranium that was present in the makings of the Earth (Cox, 1995; Thomson, 1963).
Uranium has multiple isotopes, the most common isotope is uranium-238, and with uranium-235 being the most popular, but less abundant. Surprisingly, uranium is not necessary for the sustainability of life, and is not chemically toxic (Cox, ...

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...wer is put in the wrong hands, such as that of terrorists, and people who do not quite understand its properties. If used unwisely it could be the cause of the destruction of life itself.

Works Cited
Cox, P.A. (1995). The Elements on Earth: Inorganic Chemistry in the Environment. New York: Oxford University Press.
EMSPAK, J. (2014). CERAMICS COULD PREVENT NUCLEAR DISASTER. Popular Science, 028.
Garwin, R. (2013). NUCLEAR ENERGY. New Scientist, 218(2919), 18.
Scerri, Eric R. (2007). The Periodic Table: Its story and significance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Seaborg, Eric. (2001). Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Thomson, Sir George. (1963). The Atom. New York: Oxford University Press.
Zoellner, Tom. (2009). Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock that Shaped the World. New York: Penguin Group.

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