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Edwin M. McMillan
1907–1991 · United States · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 1951
American nuclear chemist at Berkeley; discovered neptunium and, independently, conceived the synchrotron.
Nobel Prize work
By bombarding uranium with neutrons and deuterons at Berkeley, McMillan identified element 93 — neptunium, the first transuranium element — and began mapping the chemistry of elements beyond uranium. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg for these discoveries.
Fields
Related topics
Synthesis of new elements
How accelerator beams and radioactive actinide targets push the boundary of the periodic table toward the island of stability through heavy-ion fusion-evaporation.
Chemistry of actinides and superactinides
From Seaborg’s actinide hypothesis to single-atom transactinide chemistry: 5f electronic configurations, oxidation state diversity, actinyl bonding, and relativistic 5g/6f superactinides.