Word for the Wise

August 20, 2007 Broadcast

Topic: Plutonium

The radioactive metallic element plutonium was discovered in 1941, first weighed on this date in 1942, and its existence was finally publicly acknowledged in 1948, years after it was used in the nuclear bomb dropped over Nagasaki.

More than half a century later—a lifetime in the world of modern science—we look at a few of the elements that make plutonium so special.

For starters, plutonium is generally considered a man-made element (the first man-made element) despite the fact that it has been found to have occurred naturally (by a process known as spontaneous fission) in rocks containing high concentrations of localized uranium.

Like uranium, plutonium was named for a planet. Uranium was given that name because it was identified just a few years after its planetary namesake was discovered and named. For more than a century, Uranus remained the most recently discovered planet and uranium the most recently discovered element.

Then, when plutonium was identified, scientists decided to continue the pattern of naming the latest element after the latest planet. And despite the fact that the planetary status of Pluto is now up in the air, the name plutonium seems well-established.

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