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“Excellence is our Culture”

Name:Kristel Anne B. Runas Section: 9-Padolina

Subject: Research 9

Article Reading No. 1

“Fission”
By Luis alvarez

Summary:

On January 1939, the narrator learned about the discovery of nuclear fission
while his hair is being cut in Berkeley Campus barbershop. Buried on an inside page of
the San Francisco Chronicle was a story from Washington reporting Neils Bohr’s
announcement that German chemists had split the uranium atom by bombarding it
with neutrons. When the narrator saw the news he stopped the barber in mid-snip and
ran all the way to the Radiation Laboratory to spread the word. He saw first Phil
Abelson, his graduate student. The narrator already knew that the news would shock his
graduate student. The narrator said that he have something important to tell and he
ask Phil Abelson to lie down on the table. His graduate student sensed his seriousness
and complied. The narrator told him what he had read. His graduate student was
stunned and realized immediately, as the narrator had before, that Phil was within days
of making the same discovery himself.

1934, Enrico Fermi and his colleagues at the Physics Institute in Rome had noted
that bombarding uranium with neutrons gave rise to a variety of radioactivities of
different half-lives. They tried to prove that among those artificially created
radioactivities were new elements beyond uranium, transunarics never before seen on
earth. They noted these two chemical reactions near the end of a paper mailed in July,
year 1934, “appear to confirm the hypothesis that we have elements of atomic number
higher than 92”. The group of Fermi compared the radioisotopes with elements of lesser
atomic number, all the way down the periodic table to lead, atomic number 82, to
which uranium eventually decays.

STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.

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TANAUAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Trapiche 1, Tanauan City
“Excellence is our Culture”
Ida Noddack, German chemist, published a critical demurrer. She argued that
Fermi could not claim the discovery of new transuranium elements, until his unidentified
radioisotopes had been compared with every element in the periodic table. The notion
that uranium could turn into a lighter element in the middle of the periodic table under
bombardment by nothing more energetic than thermal neutrons was self-evidently
ridiculous that’s why no one took Noddack seriously. It would have to split, and the
nucleus, we thought then, before Bohr elaborated the liquid drop theory, was harder
than the hardest rock bound together by forces that is powerful enough to resist the
electrical repulsions of all the protons. A helium nucleus, atomic number 4, was the
largest chunk of nuclear material that could be chipped out of an atom. Noddack did
a codiscovering, with her husband, the element rhenium, but the Noddacks had later
announced the discovery of another element that proved to be mistaken, and they
had continued to insist on the correctness of their work when the evidence
demonstrated otherwise.

The narrator was bothered at the time that the Fermi transuranics didn’t fit the
pattern of other radioactive elements. He had long been responsible for maintaining
the big isotope chart that hung on the wall of the cyclotron control room, and every
time he looked at it he was affronted to see the so-called transuranium elements
decaying in the wrong direction. The narrator knew something was off-key and he think
that it’s a shame that Frau Noddack didn’t follow up her own suggestion. 1938, she
might have made the epohal discovery Otto Halm and Fritz Strassman made at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for chemistry in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem. The narrator spent
several evenings, thinking of a way out of the madness I observed on the isotope chart.
Fermi received the Nobel Prize in 1938, only weeks before the Christmas time discovery
of nuclear fission “for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements
produced by neutron irradiation and foor his related discovery of nuclear reactions
brought about by slow neutrons”.

Phil Abelson, he was among the narrator’s best graduate students. Since the
narrator recently demonstrated that many radioisotopes emitted characteristic X-rays,

STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.

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TANAUAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Trapiche 1, Tanauan City
“Excellence is our Culture”
Phil thought he might be able to determine the atomic number of the transuranium
radioisotopes by measuring their X-ray spectra. He chose a radioisotope with a three-
day half-life among the multitude of radioactives produced by the bombardment of
uranium with slow neutrons and separated it chemically from its cohorts. He prepared
to record its X-ray spectrum on a photographic plate. By measuring the position of the
diffracted X-ray spectral lines, he could assign an atomi number to the isotope and
determine if it was in fact what Fermi’s group had proposed.

Phil was unlucky in the numerical values involved; first attempt: the diffracted X-
ray lines didn’t hit photographic plate; During the next week: He would have changed
his observation angle and obtained the telling pictures. They would have shown the
simple K X-ray lines of a light element rather than the complex L X-ray lines of a heavier
element. Once Phil knew the fission, he quickly found that he was looking at iodine K X-
rays; his isotope was tellurium, atomic number 52. Phil signed the telegram that the
narrator wrote to the Physical Review for him. Phil contributed vitally to the production
of uranium 235 for the first atomic bomb and his last work at Berkeley was a
codiscoverer of neptunium, the first of the transuranium elements.

Ed McMillan, the partner of Phil, won the Nobel Prize for that work, but, for
reasons the narrator never understood Phil missed on that high honor. The narrator and
many of his colleagues around the world missed discovering fission. He covered the
uranium with just enough aluminum foil to block the background of short-range alphas
from uranium’s natural radioactivity. Years later the narrator discover the long-range
alphas that are produced by fewer than 1 percent of fission events. He would certainly
also have quickly seen the large oscilloscope pulses due to fission fragments. He is
probably lucky to have missed the discovery of fission.

January morning, as people arrived at the laboratory the narrator told them the
news and everyone don’t believe , one of them is Robert Oppenhelmer working with his
entourage in his bullpen in LeConte Hall. The narrator saw the reaction, impossible and
proceed to prove mathematically to everyone in the room that someone must have
made a mistake. The narrator invited Robert over to see the very small natural alpha
STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.
 Division of Tanauan City
TANAUAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Trapiche 1, Tanauan City
“Excellence is our Culture”
particle pulses on our oscilloscope and the tall, spiking fission pulses, speculated that in
the process extra neutrons would boil off that it could be used to split more uranium
atoms and thereby generate power or make bombs

The extra neutrons or instantaneous “secondary” neutrons ejected in the fission

process-soon to be the object of a worldwide research. Fermi had built the world’s first
nuclear reactor, at the University of Chicago, The narrator amused himself by using its
graphite thermal column to show the emission of secondary neutrons from uranium to
fission in an experiment that took half an hour from start to finish. One afternoon, the
narrator decide for some reason that he would look for secondaries, he decide to work
on his own. If the narrator put bottles of uranium compounds in the neutron beam close
to the counter and the uranium gave off secondary neutrons, those particles would
penetrate the cadmium, slow in the paraffin, and be detected: the counter would
count them.

The narrator’s reasoning was unimpeachable. He signed out several bottles of

uranium oxide from the chemistry storeroom and change my apparatus a bit. He
looked for the pulses from his counter for about five minutes. He could easily have
increased the sensitivity of my experimental arrangement by a million times; by moving
my counter nearer the cyclotron (20), by putting more uranium salt in the beam and
more paraffin around the counter (500), by counting for an hour with and without
uranium (100). The narrator think that he is so stupid because he wouldn’t have seen
secondary neutrons the same day. The narrator and Phil Abelson missed discovering
fission, Emilio Segre missed discovering the neutrons that accompany fission.

STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.

 Division of Tanauan City
TANAUAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Trapiche 1, Tanauan City
“Excellence is our Culture”
Reflections:

I knew that helium nucleus that has atomic number 4 was the largest chunk of
nuclear material that could be chipped out of an atom. I also knew who is Ida
Noddack, she is the woman that no one took her seriously at first because the notion
that uranium could turn into a lighter element in the middle of the periodic table under
bombardment by nothing more energetic than thermal neutrons was self-evidently
ridiculous. Aside from Ida Noddack, I already know other person that has a big
contribution in the world of science such as Phil Abelson, he had been trained in
chemistry as an undergraduate, Enrico Fermi, He and his colleagues noted that
bombarding uranium with neutrons gave rise to a variety of radioactivities of different
half-lives.

There is some dates in the article that I remember, July 1934, this is the date when
the paper where the two chemical reactions noted near the end, January 1939, the
date when Luis Alvarez found out the news. I feel amazed with Fermi because he
received the Novel Prize in 1938 and besides he built the world’s first nuclear reactor, at
the University of Chicago. Luis Alvarez and his colleagues around the world missed
discovering fission, he was looked for long-range alpha particles coming from uranium
bombarded by slow neutrons. There’s part there that is said that Phil Abelson is unlucky
in the numerical values. I also know Ed McMillan, he is Phil’s partner, won the Nobel Prize
for the work of X-ray lines but, for reasons Luis never understood that Phil missed out on
that high honor.

I realize that reasoning is sometimes unimpeachable just like the reasoning of Luis
Alvarez. He signed out several bottles of uranium oxide from the chemistry storeroom
and made the some changes in the apparatus then he looked for the pulses from his
counter. When nothing turned up, he went back to what he had been doing a few
hours before, He think that he is so stupid because he didin’t seen the secondary
neutrons the same day. Phil Abelson and Luis Alvarez missed discovering fission, Emilio
Segre missed discovering the transuranatinium elements and I also realized that regret is
always in the end.
STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.
 Division of Tanauan City
TANAUAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Trapiche 1, Tanauan City
“Excellence is our Culture”
Questions:

1)What are the misfortunes of the encountered by L. Alvarez and his colleagues in the
quest of discovering nuclear fission?

Answer: The misfortunes that L. Alvarez and his colleagues encountered are

2)What scientific attitudes are described to be significant based on the experience of L.

Alvarez?

Answer: The scientific attitudes that are described to be significant based on the
experience of L. Alvarez are determination, patience and regretful.

3)How did L. Alvarez overcome his failure of receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics?

Answer:

STEM – RESEARCH 9 OSMERANDO P . ALCANTARA JR.