Before going on to these other things, however, it should be mentioned that undoubtedly element 93 was formed even though Fermi couldn’t clearly demonstrate the fact. In 1939 the American physicists Edwin Mattison McMillan (1907- ) and Philip Hauge Abelson (1913- ), after bombarding uranium atoms with slow neutrons, were able to identify element 93. Since uranium had originally been named for the planet, Uranus, the new element beyond uranium was eventually named for the planet Neptune, which lay beyond Uranus. Element 93 is therefore called “neptunium”.
Lise Meitner
Emilio Segrè
Edwin M. McMillan
Otto R. Frisch
