Famous People in the Field of Nuclear Science

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Famous People in the Field of Nuclear Science

(briefing courtesy of North Anna Nuclear Power
Station)
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Marie Curie (1867-1934)
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Marie Curie (1867-1934)

• Polish physicist, in 1898, named the emissions
  (alpha beta) from uranium radioactivity
• Discovered the chemical elements radium and
  polonium
• worked with cloud chambers and magnetic fields to
  bend radiation.

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Marie Curie (1867-1934)

• Shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with her
  husband (Pierre) and Becquerel
• First Woman to receive Nobel Prize
• In 1911 she received an unprecedented second
  Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her work
  on radium and radium compounds.

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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

• In 1911, Rutherford established the nuclear model
  of the atom.
• He theorized that atoms are constructed much
  like the solar system.
• That is, a heavy part, called the nucleus, forms
  the center.
• Particles of negative electricity, called
  electrons, form the outer part, most of which
  consists of empty space.

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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
"It was as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch
shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came
back and hit you."
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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
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Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• 1905, produced the theory of relativity (Emc2)
• This resulted in the shocking conclusion that
  time depends on the observer.
• When moving at high speeds
• Effective mass increases
• Time slows
• Length shrinks
• only the speed of light remains the same.

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Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• Experimenters have carried extremely accurate
  atomic clocks on high-speed jets on
  around-the-world journeys. And when they compared
  these clocks to the extremely accurate clocks
  they left at home, the traveling clock had indeed
  gone slower and lost time. But by very little.

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Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• received the 1921 Nobel Prize for work in
  mathematical physics stating the law of the
  Photoelectric Effect
• Einstein proposed that under certain
  circumstances light can be considered as
  consisting of particles
• Also hypothesized that the energy carried by any
  light particle, called a photon, is proportional
  to the frequency of the radiation

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Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958)
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Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958)

• an American physicist worked with particle
  accelerators
• A machine that accelerates atomic particles
  between poles of an electromagnet and directs
  them into material
• These accelerators have produced many of the
  elements beyond uranium.

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Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958)

• Also, these machines have greatly enhanced the
  capacity to produce radioactive substances.
• Received the 1939 Nobel Prize for creating the
  Cyclotron accelerator

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Cyclotron Accelerator
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Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)
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Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

• An Italian-born American physicist began
  bombarding elements with neutrons in 1934
• In 1938, He came to America to escape the Fascist
  regime
• Created theory of beta decay
• Theory on the origin of cosmic rays

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Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

• designed the first atomic pile and produced the
  first nuclear chain reaction on Dec. 2, 1942
  (birth of the reactor)
• Reactor under the football stands of the
  University of Chicago

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First Atomic Pile
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Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999)
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Glenn Seaborg

• Co-discovered Plutonium and 9 other elements
• Element 106 - Seaborgium named after him
• Only living person to have element named after
  him
• Identified more than 100 isotopes
• Figured out how transuranium elements fit in the
  periodic table
• Identified medical isotopes - saved his mothers
  life with discovery of Iodine-131

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