Disappearing Spoon Chapter 7: Summary & Reflection

Summary:

    Some elements that are named after places and people are, Berkelium, Californium, Americium, Einsteinium, and Mendelevium. This chapter is mostly about man made elements rather than naturally occurring ones.Kean starts off talking about how new atoms are being discovered a lot more rapidly than before. He talks about the University of Berkeley's chemistry department had found the elements Berkelium and universitium. Glenn Seaborg worked for the University of Berkeley and was part of the Manhattan Project.  Though, creating elements at UC Berkeley was difficult because a majority of the elements that were created had a short life span. Kean claims that the scientist at Berkeley were doing better at creating elements than the supernova.
     A lot of the elements at the bottom of the table were made rather than discovered. This is so because it took certain individuals to be able to come up with a way to make a new element. Also, the man made elements were more likely to be unstable rather than the ones originally found on Earth. Stalin forced his beliefs onto the Soviet Union and prevented them from doing any studies that thwarted what he believed. Kean mentions how the cold war was started mostly because the Soviet Union wanted to take credit for elements that they in fact did not discover.

Reflection:

     I enjoyed this chapter very much. I especially found it interesting to know that Stalin forced his beliefs in order to slow the progression in finding new elements. Learning something about the cold war was interesting as well.