Albert Ghiorso

At 95 years old, Albert Ghiorso physical status not available right now. We will update Albert Ghiorso's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010), 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.

Early life

Ghiorso was born in Vallejo, California, on July 15, 1915, of Italian and Spanish ancestry. He grew up in Alameda, California. He developed radio circuitry as an adult and earned a reputation for establishing radio contacts at distances that rivaled the military.

In 1937, he earned his BS in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked for Reginald Tibbets, a well-known amateur radio operator who ran a company that sold radiation detectors to the government after graduation. Ghiorso's ability to produce and produce these devices, as well as a variety of electronics applications, put him into contact with the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, in particular Glenn Seaborg. He encountered two espionage, one of whom married Seaborg, while in the course of a lab where he was to install an intercom. Wilma Belt, the other, became Albert's wife of 60 years.

Ghiorso was born in a devout Christian family, but he later left the faith and became an atheist. Nonetheless, he retained Christian values.

Seaborg started in the 1940s and went to Chicago to work on the Manhattan Project. Ghiorso invited Ghiorso to join him, and Ghiorso developed sophisticated methods for detecting nuclear radiation, including spontaneous fission. A 48-channel pulse height analyzer, one of Ghiorso's most valuable devices, allowed him to determine the source of the radiation's energy and, therefore, the source. During this period, they discovered two new elements (95, americium, and 96, curium), but the war was not published until after the war.

Seaborg and Ghiorso returned to Berkeley, where they and colleagues used the 60" Crocker cyclotron to produce parts of increasing atomic number by bombarding exotic targets with helium ions. They developed and identified elements 97 (berkelium) and 98 (californium) in experiments from 1949 to 1950. In 1953, Ghiorso and collaborators investigated and discovered elements 99 (einsteinium) and 100 (fermium), the latter's characteristic radiation in dust collected by airplanes from the first thermonuclear explosion (the Mike test). The company first discovered atom-by-atom in 1955, when the cyclotron was used to produce 17 atoms of element 101 (mendelevium). Ghiorso's recoil system was instrumental in extracting a distinct signal from individual atoms of the new component.

It became abundantly that to extend the periodic chart any further, a new accelerator would be needed, and the Berkeley Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC) was built, with Ghiorso in charge. That machine was used in the discovery of elements 102-106 (102, nobelium, 103, lawrencium; 104, rutherfordium; 106, seaborgium), each produced and identified on the basis of a few atoms. Each successive step was made possible by the introduction of new robotic target handling, rapid chemistry, effective radiation detectors, and computer data processing. The HILAC's 1972 upgrade to the superHILAC provided more ion beams, which was essential to obtaining enough new atoms for element 106 detection.

With an increasing atomic number, the experimental difficulties of making and identifying a new component have risen dramatically. Berkeley's supplies for new element study in the 1970s and 1980s were dwindling, but the GSI laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany, under Peter Armbruster's leadership, was able to produce and identify elements 107-109 (107, bohrium; 108, hassium, and 109, meitnerium). The Berkeley and Darmstadt groups began working together in the early 1990s to produce element 110. Initially, Berkeley experiments were unsuccessful, but elements 110-112 (110, darmstadtium; 112, copernicium) were discovered in the Darmstadt laboratory, but eventually components 110-112 (110, darmstadtium; 112, copernicium) were discovered. Subsequent work at the JINR laboratory in Dubna, led by Yuri Oganessian and a Russian-American team of scientists, was successful in identifying elements 113-118 (113, nihonium; 115, moscovium; 116, livermorium; 116, trichrome; and 118, oganesson), completing the seventh row of the periodic table of the elements.

Several methods and equipment for isolating and identifying heavy elements are developed by Ghiorso. He is largely credited with the introduction of the multichannel analyzer and the process of recoiling reaction samples, but both of these were significant expansions of previously understood terms. His proposal for a new accelerator, the Omnitron, is considered to have been a major development that may have allowed the Berkeley lab to find many more new elements, but the machine was never built, a victim of the country's political landscape that de-emphasized basic nuclear research and greatly expanded research on environmental, health, and safety issues. Ghiorso proposed the joining of the HILAC and the Bevalac partly as a result of the Omnitron's failure to build the Omnitron. The combination machine, which was an ungainly articulation across the Rad Lab's steep slope, released heavy ions at GeV energies, allowing the establishment of two new fields of research: "high-energy nuclear physics," which means that the nucleus is sufficiently hot to produce collective dynamical effects, as well as heavy ion therapy, in which high-energy ions are used to irradiate tumors in cancer patients. Both of these fields have grown in popularity in several laboratories and clinics around the world.

Ghiorso's later years continued to seek superheavy metals, fusion energy, and new electron beam sources. He was a non-participating co-author of the experiments in 1999 that showed elements 116 and 118, which later turned out to be a case of scientific fraud perpetrated by Victor Ninov. He had a short research interest in the discovery of element 43 and the electron disk accelerator, among other things.

Albert Ghiorso is credited with co-discovering the following aspects.

Ghiorso personally selected some of the names suggested by his organization for the new elements. The original name for element 105 (hahnium) was changed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to dubnium to honor the laboratory's contribution in the quest for trans-fermium elements. His suggestion for element 106, seaborgium, was only accepted after a lengthy discussion over the designation of an element after a living individual. A Berkeley group first reported in 1999 that two superheavy elements (element 116 and element 118) was present. The discovery group had intended to use the word ghiorsium for element 118, but the results were discovered to have been altered, and the claims were withdrawn in 2002. Ghiorso's lifetime work comprised approximately 170 scientific papers, the majority of which were published in The Physical Review.

Ghiorso is best known among his colleagues for his endless stream of innovative "doodles," which define an art form suggestive of fractals. He also created a state-of-the-art camera for birdwatching and was a regular promoter of environmental causes and organizations.

Several obituaries are available online, and a full-length biography is in order.

Later life

Ghiorso's later years concentrated on finding superheavy components, fusion energy, and novel electron beam sources. He was a non-participating co-author of the experiments in 1999 that gave evidence of elements 116 and 118, which later proved to be a case of scientific fraud perpetrated by Victor Ninov, the first author. He had brief research interest in the discovery of element 43 and the electron disk accelerator, among other things.

Albert Ghiorso is credited with co-discovering the following elements.

Ghiorso personally selected some of the names that had been suggested by his organization for the new elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) had the element 105 (hahnium) recognize the laboratory's contribution in the search for trans-fermium elements. His suggestion for element 106, seaborgium, was only accepted after a lengthy discussion over naming an element after a living person. A Berkeley group published results for two superheavy elements (element 116 and element 118). The research company intended to use the word ghiorsium for element 118, but the results were later discovered to have been altered, and the claims were eventually dismissed in 2002. Ghiorso's lifetime work totaled about 170 scientific papers, the majority of which were published in The Physical Review.

Ghiorso is well-known among his colleagues for his nexus of creative "doodles" that characterize an art style that seems to be reminiscent of fractals. He also created a state-of-the-art camera for birdwatching, and was a regular promoter of environmental causes and organizations.

Several obituaries are now available online, and a full biography is currently in process.

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