Evening star., 1947-09-17
By Thomas R. Henry
Sfor StoH Correspondent

NEW YORK, Sept. 17.-An
element so hot" that it can be
photographed by it's own light
and so short-lived that it was
exhausted in nature a few years
after earth's creation was de-
scribed before the American
Chemical Society here today.
This is curium, which has been
produced in the laboratories of the
Atomic Energy Commission in an
amount about equal to a grain of
sand. 1t is element 96. heaviest and
most explosive of all, which has just
been studied in pure form at the
University Of California.
1t is so active that about 10000
100000 alpha particles, the nuclei
OF helium atoms, are shot forth by a
ten-thousandth of 4 gram at close
to the speed of light every minute.
1t seethes and bubbles. From it
comes a ghostly white light. It
would be almost certain death to
handle any of it without powerful
atomic shields.
The strange new element was de-
scribed by DR.. Isadore Periman,
University of California physicist.
1t is the fourth of the new synthetic
elements derived from the lombard
ment of uranium - the so-called
trans-uranic elements. All pre-
sumably were present in the original
composition or exist in such minute
quantities that they cannot be
traced.
First came neptunium, element 93
1t is so explosive that half of any
given amount disappears in two days
and half. From this was derived
plutonium, the explosive material of
the atomic bomb, with a half life of
% 900 years.
Utility Still Is Unknown.
The next step described by DR..
Perlman was the production from
plutonium of bare traces of still
heavier element, americium, which
is extremely dangerous to handle,
emitting about 100000 alpha par
ticleS per minute per thousandth of
gram.
Curum is the next step, built up
from americium and 10 times more
radioactive.
Utility of the new element still is
unknown. 1t was predicted that it
may open the doors to higher ranges
of energy than any yet known.
OF more practical significance was
the announcement by DR.. Perlman
of the production of several hundred
miligrams of an isotope of nep-
tunium which has a half life of two
million years. Like the other trans
uranic elements, it emits alpha par
ticleS, but at rate so slow that
the material is safe to handle in
ordinary chemical processes. It is
being studied for the new light
which it may throw on atomic struc-
lures.
Search for Tritium Described.
Search for the rarest of all the
basic substances of nature, tritium,
was described by DR.. Maxwell L.
Eidinoff of Queens College, Brook
lyn. Tritium is triple-weight hydro
gen, lightest and simplest Of the
elements from which all the others
may have been built up. The elusive
isotope is radioactive and, if it could
be isolated in considerable guam
titles, might be of extreme import
ance.
But the search to date, DR.. Ed
enoff said, indicates that it exists
in nature in a ratio of only about
one trillium atom to 100 quadrillion
atoms of ordinary hydrogen. Thus
its isolation seems very remote in
deed, and there is no way of pro-
ducing it in the laboratory.
Positive proof that the hitherto
most elusive of the chemical ele-
ments-number Clean be made
artificially in atomic piles was pre-
sented before the society today by
Drs. A. J. Marinsky and L. E. Glen
denim of the Atomic Energy Com
missions Oak Ridge laboratory.
The discovery of this element in
natural form was claimed in 1925 at
the University Of Illinois and it was
named "illinium." 1t is one of the
so-called rare earths," scarcest of
all the primary materials in the
earth's composition. That it &C
tually had been isolated, however,
was very doubtful. Now there is a
movement to remove the name illi-
mum and name the element CYCLIC
mum.