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Berkelium, Berkelium, here for a second, then gone in a few. Created in Cal's cyclotron, this transuranium element is ever so rare, and radioactive, to or despair.

 

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Creation
    

 

 Berkelium first arrived in this world in 1949; its creators Stanley G. Thomas, Albert Ghiorso, and Glenn T. Seaborg, all professors at the University of California at Berkley. Berkelium is created in a cyclotron, a particle accelerator, (link) and forms when sped up helium ion are shot at Americium particles. Because Berkelium is so rare, it has no commercial uses, and is hardly ever created. However, the first visible Berkelium compound, Berkelium chloride was created in 1962. The compound weighed on billionth of a gram, and was a silvery, glossy metal.
Berkelium is a radioactive, transuranium, man-made Actinide with a period number of 7. At room temperature, Berkelium is a silver colored, metal solid, and weighs a hefty 247 units. With an atomic number of 97, Berkelium is considered one of the largest elements on the periodic table. Its most stable isotope, Berkelium-247 has a half-life of around 1,380 years, and slowely decays into Americium-243.

Berkelium is created in a machine called a cyclotron. A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator, which is used to speed up sub-atomic particles and fling them at a stationary set of subatomic particles. This is accomplished by the particles acceleration around in a circular motion, and when they have reached a high enough speed, the stationary particle is inserted into the circular chamber, causing the moving particles to collide with the stationary particles at a very high speeds.

Facts
Atomic Number: 97 Half-life: 314 days
Atomic Mass: 247 First Compound: Berkelium Chloride
Melting Point: 1050 C Element Classification: Actinide
Place of Invention: University of Californai at Berkley Element Classification: Transuranium
Weight (grams): One billionth of a gram Danger Level: Radioactive (very harmful)

 

Berkelium is closely related to Americium. To learn more about Americium, click here.

 

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1. Actinide - noun. An element with an atomic number between 89 and 103. They are radioactive elements.

2.Particle Accelerator- noun. A device, such as a cyclotron or linear accelerator, that accelerates charged subatomic particles or nuclei to high energies. Also called atom smasher.

3. Cyclotron - noun. A circular particle accelerator in which charged subatomic particles generated at a central source are accelerated spirally outward in a plane perpendicular to a fixed magnetic field by an alternating electric field. A cyclotron is capable of generating particle energies between a few million and several tens of millions of electron volts.

4. University of California at Berkley - noun. National leader in hundreds of fields of research, including physics. Houses the Lawrence Hall of Science, medical research center, and the famous cyclotron. See The History of  UC Berkley for more information
5. Transuranium - adjective. Having an atomic number greater than 92. All trasuranium elements are man-made.
6. Radioactive - adjective. A particle generating the spontanious emmision of radioactivity.

 

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