For years there was a gap in the periodic table of the elements. Scientists knew there was an element there, but they hadn’t discovered it. In 1937, that element, technetium, was synthesized in a lab. This discovery filled a gap in the periodic table.
Many of the elements on the periodic table aren’t natural. A few examples are hassium, lutetium, and californium. These elements happen to all be extremely toxic, and only a few people are actually able to handle it without exploding both themselves and the entire area surrounding them. I’m going to explain two of them– their properties, who created them, and some fun facts about them.
The first one I’m going to teach you about is one that’s well known by most people for being radioactive—plutonium. It’s used in bombs, for the power in some heart pacemakers, as well as making a good sustainable amount of heat for NASA missions. If you’re exposed to it, however, you can get several cancers since it literally emits radioactive waves.
Plutonium is created by creating neptunium which would decay into the element stated. Or you could simply obtain 4000 pounds of uranium to get a pound of plutonium, which is what the people who discovered plutonium did- Glen Seaborg and Edwin McMillan. Eventually, they got enough to create one of the bombs that got dropped over Japan, which was called Fat Man.
Jumping from one of the most known to one of the least, this element is called berkelium. It’s soft and silvery white, along with being extremely radioactive. It can cause red blood cell damage if left accumulating in the human body, and will decay into other more dangerous elements like curium and californium. That’s two elements you just learned about. Amazing! Surprised you sat through that.
Now you’re 30% smarter in the chemistry department (Not really; this is a joke, don’t sue me) and have some fun facts to tell your friends. For a recap, man made elements are the most radioactive elements on the periodic table. Elements are the building blocks of the universe. The world of man made elements is a fascinating world of infinite discovery and destruction.
