Thursday, April 27, 2006
This Day in the History of Science
On this day in 1913, Philip Hauge Abelson was born. Not exactly a household name, be became a physical chemist who proposed the gas diffusion process for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238 (essential to the development of the atomic bomb). The Iranians are now following in his footsteps. In collaboration with the U.S. physicist Edwin M. McMillan, he discovered a new element, Neptunium, produced by irradiating uranium with neutrons. At the end WW II, his report on the feasibility of building a nuclear-powered submarine helped give birth to the U.S. program in that field. In 1946, Abelson returned to the Carnegie Institution and pioneered work in utilizing radioactive isotopes. As director of the Geophysics Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution (1953-71), he found amino acids in fossils, and fatty acids in rocks more than 1,000,000,000 years old. He died two years ago.
(h/t Today in Science History)
(h/t Today in Science History)
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 12:05 AM 
