1950 in science

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The year 1950 in science and technology included some significant events.

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Astronomy and space sciences

Biology

Chemistry

Computer science

Mathematics

Medicine

Physics

Technology

Events

Awards

Births

Deaths

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The actinide or actinoid series encompasses the 14 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through Lawrencium. The actinide series derives its name from the first element in the series, actinium. The informal chemical symbol An is used in general discussions of actinide chemistry to refer to any actinide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkelium</span> Chemical element, symbol Bk and atomic number 97

Berkelium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where it was discovered in December 1949. Berkelium was the fifth transuranium element discovered after neptunium, plutonium, curium and americium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BCS theory</span> Microscopic theory of superconductivity

In physics, theBardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a condensation of Cooper pairs. The theory is also used in nuclear physics to describe the pairing interaction between nucleons in an atomic nucleus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Californium</span> Chemical element, symbol Cf and atomic number 98

Californium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, by bombarding curium with alpha particles. It is an actinide element, the sixth transuranium element to be synthesized, and has the second-highest atomic mass of all elements that have been produced in amounts large enough to see with the naked eye. The element was named after the university and the U.S. state of California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Einsteinium</span> Chemical element, symbol Es and atomic number 99

Einsteinium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enrico Fermi</span> Italian-American physicist (1901–1954)

Enrico Fermi was an Italian and later naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermium</span> Chemical element, symbol Fm and atomic number 100

Fermium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Fm and atomic number 100. It is an actinide and the heaviest element that can be formed by neutron bombardment of lighter elements, and hence the last element that can be prepared in macroscopic quantities, although pure fermium metal has not yet been prepared. A total of 20 isotopes are known, with 257Fm being the longest-lived with a half-life of 100.5 days.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenn T. Seaborg</span> American chemist (1912–1999)

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nobelium</span> Chemical element, symbol No and atomic number 102

Nobelium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol No and atomic number 102. It is named in honor of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of science. A radioactive metal, it is the tenth transuranic element and is the penultimate member of the actinide series. Like all elements with atomic number over 100, nobelium can only be produced in particle accelerators by bombarding lighter elements with charged particles. A total of twelve nobelium isotopes are known to exist; the most stable is 259No with a half-life of 58 minutes, but the shorter-lived 255No is most commonly used in chemistry because it can be produced on a larger scale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seaborgium</span> Chemical element, symbol Sg and atomic number 106

Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is also radioactive; the most stable known isotope, 269Sg, has a half-life of approximately 14 minutes.

The transuranium elements are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92, which is the atomic number of uranium. All of them are radioactively unstable and decay into other elements. With the exception of neptunium and plutonium which have been found in trace amounts in nature, none occur naturally on Earth and they are synthetic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oganesson</span> Chemical element, symbol Og and atomic number 118

Oganesson is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Og and atomic number 118. It was first synthesized in 2002 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, near Moscow, Russia, by a joint team of Russian and American scientists. In December 2015, it was recognized as one of four new elements by the Joint Working Party of the international scientific bodies IUPAC and IUPAP. It was formally named on 28 November 2016. The name honors the nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, who played a leading role in the discovery of the heaviest elements in the periodic table. It is one of only two elements named after a person who was alive at the time of naming, the other being seaborgium, and the only element whose eponym is alive as of 2024.

The names for the chemical elements 104 to 106 were the subject of a major controversy starting in the 1960s, described by some nuclear chemists as the Transfermium Wars because it concerned the elements following fermium on the periodic table.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Goeppert Mayer</span> German-American theoretical physicist

Maria Goeppert Mayer was a German-born American theoretical physicist, and Nobel laureate in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus. She was the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in physics, the first being Marie Curie. In 1986, the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for early-career women physicists was established in her honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Ghiorso</span> American nuclear scientist

Albert Ghiorso was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emilio Segrè</span> Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate (1905–1989)

Emilio Gino Segrè was an Italian and naturalized-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 along with Owen Chamberlain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Rainwater</span> American physicist

Leo James Rainwater was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.

The year 1955 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

Eugene Theodore Booth, Jr. was an American nuclear physicist. He was a member of the historic Columbia University team which made the first demonstration of nuclear fission in the United States. During the Manhattan Project, he worked on gaseous diffusion for isotope separation. He was the director of the design, construction, and operation project for the 385-Mev synchrocyclotron at the Nevis Laboratories, the scientific director of the SCALANT Research Center, and dean of graduate studies at Stevens Institute of Technology. Booth was the scientific director of the SCALANT Research Center, in Italy.

Pirkko Eskola is a Finnish physicist. She discovered the chemical elements Rutherfordium and Dubnium whilst working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

References

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