Evening star., 1950-09-06
Rare Elements Throw
New Light on Creation
BerkeIium und Californian
Once Were FoirIy Abundant
By Thomas R. Henry

CHICAGO, Sept. 6.-The rarest sub
stances on earth are throwing new light
on the structure of creation.
They are the newly created elements
berkelium and californian. OF each
there is now in existence about 5000
atoms or q billionth Of billionth Of q
gram.
They were described to the American
Chemical Society here today by group
Of California scientists who, under the
direction Of DR.. Glenn T. Seaborg, have
created them in the University of Cali
fornia cyclotron during the past few
months. They are undetectable by any
means Of chemical analysis known, but
their existence can be determined by
their very intense radiation. Half Of
any amount Of either of them will lex
plode" in little less than five hours.
Any appreciable amount Of either would
be like glowing coal.
Once Fairly Abundant.
Both probably were fairly abundant,
it was postulated, at the time Of the
creation of the universe two or three
billion years ago but since then have
disappeared from nature. It is highly
doubtful If either can be produced in
sufficient quantities to have any value
other than leading to better under
standing Of the structure of the elements.
Meanwhile, it was announced, appre-
ciable amounts of the two elements next
lower in the atomic table, americium and
curium have been produced. Both have
been obtained recently in the form Of
glowing, silver-white specks of metal.
Some idea of what may be expected
Of the new higher elements can be OBJ
tanned from the behavior of metallic
curium. 1t glows as brightly as flash
light in the dark. It always remains
at higher temperature than its sur
roundlngs, so that it must be cooled
artif1cially before any experimental work
can be done. 1t will diSintegrate porce-
lain or glass in few days. Small
amounts in the human body would act
as deadly poison. The amount of
the metal thus far obtained is so tiny
that it could not be seen with the naked
eye.
A proposed reading machine which
could search the entire Library of Con-
gress and select all the information
available on given subject in ten sec
onds was described to the American
Chemical Society here today.
Then it could print all the abstracts
selected at the rate of ten minute.
There is a machine at present, one
type of which is used in the Agricul-
ture Department library. which is said
to have searched $4,000 references in fve
minutes. The proposed machine would
be 5000 times faster.
1t has not yet been built and would be
quite expensive but is entirely feasible,
DR.. Calvin N. Mooers of Boston told the
chemists.
Would Fit in One Room.
All the apparatus would At into an
ordinary large-Sized room, he said. 1t
would be feasible, however, only for great
cooperative enterprises. The smaller
machines now in use can handle most
current needs.
There, however. is torrent of scien-
tific literature estimated to be flowing
at more than 100000 papers year.
About 100.000,000 papers have accunl-
lated.
The fastest electronic machinery now
in existence would require about $500
hours to scan 100, 900 900 pieces in answer
to one request for specific information.
The proposed apparatus would do the
same in ITO hours.
The actual cost would be less, DR..
Mooers said. than that of some of the
great computing machines now in use.