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The first synthetic element

When Mendeleev proposed his periodic table in 1869, element 43 was unknown. In 1937, it became the first element to be discovered by synthesis in a laboratory — paving the way to the atomic age.
  1. Kit Chapman

    1. Kit Chapman is a science writer based in Cambridge, UK. His book, Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table, will be published in June 2019.

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Figure 1 | Mendeleev’s periodic table. When Mendeleev devised his periodic table 150 years ago, he left spaces for elements that he thought were missing. The gap indicated by the dashed box is for element 43. Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè3 discovered this element, now known as technetium, in 1937. Credit: Science History Institute

In 1937, a piece of molybdenum plate arrived at the University of Palermo in Sicily. It had been shipped from the University of California, Berkeley, where it had been part of Ernest Lawrence’s ‘atom smasher’ — one of the first particle accelerators, known as the 37-inch cyclotron. The plate contained the most important missing piece of the chemical world.

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Nature 565, 570-571 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00236-4

References

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  3. Perrier, C. & Segrè, E. Nature 140, 193–194 (1937).

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