Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table

by Kit Chapman

Overview

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 AAAS/SUBARU SB&F PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE BOOKS

How new elements are discovered, why they matter and where they will take us.

Creating an element is no easy feat. It's the equivalent of firing six trillion bullets a second at a needle in a haystack, hoping the bullet and needle somehow fuse together, then catching it in less than a thousandth of a second – after which it's gone forever. Welcome to the world of the superheavy elements: a realm where scientists use giant machines and spend years trying to make a single atom of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth.

From the first elements past uranium, and their role in the atomic bomb, to the latest discoveries stretching the bounds of our chemical world, Superheavy reveals the hidden stories lurking at the edges of the periodic table. Why did US Air Force fly planes into mushroom clouds? Who won the transfermium wars? How did an earthquake help give Japan its first element? And what happened when Superman almost spilled nuclear secrets?

In a globe-trotting adventure that stretches from the United States to Russia, Sweden to Australia, Superheavy is your guide to the amazing science filling in the missing pieces of the periodic table. You'll not only marvel at how nuclear science has changed our lives – you'll wonder where it's going to take us in the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472953919
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/13/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	896,396
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kit Chapman is an award-winning science journalist and broadcaster. Initially qualifying as a pharmacist, Chapman began his career on medical journal The Practitioner before moving to Chemist+Druggist, the UK's leading magazine for pharmacists. After stints as campaign website manager for the British Medical Association and clinical editor for The Pharmaceutical Journal, Chapman was appointed comment editor for Chemistry World. Chapman also writes for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and has appeared as an expert for the BBC and Sky News.

@ChemistryKit
Kit Chapman is an award-winning journalist and adventurer. With more than a decade of experience writing for titles such as Nature, New Scientist, Chemistry World, Physics World and the Daily Telegraph, his work has taken him to more than 75 countries as he seeks amazing tales from the cutting edge of science.

Kit has a PhD in the history of science from the University of Sunderland, is a lecturer at Falmouth University and a contributor to Formula One's F1 Global Exhibition, currently on tour around the world.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Introduction

PART I: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM
Chapter 1: Modern Alchemy
Chapter 2: The Secret of Gilman Hall
Chapter 3: How to Build a Nuclear Weapon
Chapter 4: Superman vs the FBI
Chapter 5: Universitium ofium Californium Berkelium
Chapter 6: The Death of Jimmy Robinson
Chapter 7: Presidents and Beetles

PART II: TRANSFERMIUM WARS
Chapter 8: Nobelievium
Chapter 9: From Russia with Flerov
Chapter 10: The East and the West
Chapter 11: Xanthasia and the Magic Numbers
Chapter 12: Life at the Edge of Science
Chapter 13: The Atoms that Came in from the Cold
Chapter 14: Changing the Rules
Chapter 15: How to Name your Element

PART III: THE END OF CHEMISTRY
Chapter 16: After the Wall Came Down
Chapter 17: The Ninov Fraud
Chapter 18: A New Hope
Chapter 19: Beams of the Rising Sun
Chapter 20: The Edge of the Unknown
Chapter 21: Beyond Superheavy

Epilogue
References
Acknowledgements
Index

Editorial Reviews

05/06/2019

British science journalist Chapman takes readers on a tour of the far end of the periodic table in his lively debut, chronicling the discoveries of the transuranium chemical elements—those with atomic numbers greater than uranium’s 92. Using a mix of secondary sources and new interviews, he narrates the experiments that, between 1945 and 2016, yielded elements 93 to 118. Chapman emphasizes the fierce competition between the U.S. research group, led by Glenn Seaborg and Albert Ghiorso in Berkeley, and their Soviet (later, Russian) counterparts, led by Georgy Flerov and Yuri Oganessian, in the small town of Dubna. However, he doesn’t neglect the two other teams, in Tokyo and in Darmstadt, Germany, also responsible for filling in some of the blanks on the periodic table. Chapman’s sweeping narrative includes plenty of memorable incidents and details, from Ghiorso’s 1955 midnight run in a supercharged VW Beetle in the hills above San Francisco Bay to deliver a new sample of element 101 to the lab before it decayed, to the injustices weathered by nuclear chemist Darleane Hoffman, twice robbed by institutional sexism of an element discovery during her career. This is a must-read for anyone interested in how humans have expanded, and continue to expand, the boundaries of scientific knowledge. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Without any compromise in accuracy, the book is compelling, conversational and entertaining, full of great stories and insights into the characters behind the quest.” —Chemistry World

“Making elements that don't exist in nature is one of the craziest, most painstaking and bold pursuits in all of science, and Superheavy tells that story for the first time, with wit and verve. This deeply researched and engaging tour of the nether reaches of the periodic table will delight and inform everyone from the expert to the reader with only the dimmest memory of the iconic chart of chemical elements on the school lab wall.” —Phillip Ball, author of Beyond Weird

“With meticulous attention to detail and careful research, Chapman masterfully captures the excitement, politics and competition of the transuranic elements. Chapman's energy and enthusiasm is evident in every interaction, whether he is uncovering elaborate experimental details or unearthing scientific rivalries.” —Jess Wade, Physics Research Associate, Imperial College London

“To anyone who imagines that the romantic age of elemental discovery ended in the 19th century, Kit Chapman's hugely entertaining account of the discovery of the elements past uranium will be a real eye-opener. Larger than life characters, strange stories of errors, improvisation, and luck (good and bad) abound here. With a solid introduction to the science underpinning the stability and separation of these mysterious and mostly ephemeral species, there is much for everyone to learn and connect with here.” —Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, UCL, and winner of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize 2014

From the Publisher

2019-05-08
Perhaps the first popular-science exploration of the weird world of huge, unstable, laboratory-generated elements.

In his debut, British journalist and broadcaster Chapman first explains that elements from one (hydrogen) to 92 (uranium) exist in nature. Transuranium elements (greater than 92) are produced in nuclear explosions, nuclear reactors, or nuclear accelerators. All are unstable—i.e., radioactive—so they gradually break down, and the heavier they are, the quicker they disappear. This is no problem for plutonium, element 94, which is only mildly radioactive, and Chapman describes the huge industry that generates tons for use in bombs and nuclear power. Just beyond plutonium (Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium…), they can be produced in visible quantities and are found in X-ray spectrometers and smoke detectors. Those after Einsteinium (element 99) exist in microscopic amounts and have no commercial use, but they continue to fascinate groups of researchers, including one formerly led by Chapman's hero, Nobel Prize winner Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999), who discovered 10. Based in California, Germany, Sweden, and Russia, these groups compete fiercely to generate heavier elements, often in minuscule quantities, study their properties, and quarrel over who was first. The book's title refers to elements after 103, which are increasingly hard to produce in vanishingly small quantities but hold out the possibility of an "island of stability," a massive atom that reverses the trend toward increasingly fleeting existence. "The superheavy elements—elements from 104 and beyond—might last for seconds, but that's what makes them so cool," he writes. "When an atom of a superheavy element is created, it is probably the only atom of that element in existence in the universe." Chapman has done his homework, traveled the world to interview a colorful fraternity of scientists, and delivered an entertaining account of their struggles to create elements that have never existed and that may or may not reveal spectacular new features.

A fine pop-science account of elements that "are rewriting the laws of atomic structure."

Kirkus Reviews