The history of nuclear fission
Uranium is the key to the exploitation of nuclear energy. As such, it has developed an exotic reputation, but it is in fact a very common element as common as tin. It is present in rock and soil, and in water in trace amounts and, in much the same way as other minerals like tin, is found in various concentrations in different types of deposit. Rocks such as uraninite, autunite, uranophane, pitchblende or coffinite can be as much as 2 per cent uranium, but it also exists at a few parts per million in granite and many other rocks and at much greater concentration in deposits mined for uranium fuel. Uranium oxide was used to give colour to ceramic glazes as far back as the first century AD, but it was not until the 18th century that it was isolated and named. It was separated from pitchblende (the so-called black mineral) in 1789, by a German chemist named Martin Klaproth, and named after the recently discovered planet Uranus, which in turn had been named after Urania, the muse of astronomy and geometry. Uranium metal was first produced from uranium oxide by Eugene-Melchior Peligot in 1841. It is a silver-white metal, denser than lead. The metal that had been so little known for so many centuries was the centre, over the next few decades, of a frenzy of scientific research and discovery that revealed that the atom had a complex internal structure and, moreover, one that was not unchangeable. Along the way, it also confirmed Albert Einstein's theories on mass and energy and laid the foundations for the exploitation of the power of the nucleus.
The history of nuclear fission, Page 1 of 2
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