Glenn Seaborg: Shaking Up the Periodic Table

Hank synopsizes the life and work of Glenn Seaborg, pioneer of synthetic elements, member of the Manhattan Project, and the architect of the last great shake-up of the periodic table.
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Sources:
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1951/seaborg-bio.html
www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/atomic-and-nuclear-structure/seaborg.aspx
www.nytimes.com/1999/02/27/us/glenn-seaborg-leader-of-team-that-found-plutonium-dies-at-86.html
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/seaborg.html
chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa050601a.htm
www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Transuranium_element.html
www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/atomic-and-nuclear-structure/hahn-meitner-strassman.aspx
www.seaborg.ucla.edu/biography.html
www.world-nuclear.org/info/Non-Power-Nuclear-Applications/Overview/The-Many-Uses-of-Nuclear-Technology/
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/plutonium.html
www.wou.edu/las/physci/ch412/perhist.htm
labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=435777

[@karlaorosco5646]

I was fortunate enough to be a student at Cal in his late years. One thing that he used to share in his presentations was his name could also spell "Go Bears!". It just proved that he was destined to be at Berkeley. He was an incredible nice man and a gifted teacher.

[@Toastmaster_5000]

damn, talk about someone who had an accomplished life. Just ONE of those things would make him an important person.

[@averinthine]

The Lanthanide/Actinide to Lanthanoid/Actinoid change happened because the original terms didn't fit with the rest of IUPAC's naming conventions. The -ide suffix is used to denote a monatomic anion, such as chloride or oxide, whereas -oid basically means 'it's a thing that's like the other thing', as in humanoid or android.

[@montycantsin8861]

I scrolled for a while to find this answer. Thanks for providing it!

[@tomgio1]

@@montycantsin8861 , is it kind of like opiate vs opioid?

[@annikapeterson4061]

I once sat in Glenn T. Seaborg's chair. It was an exciting moment in my life. (I work at the Northern Michigan University Archives, which is near Seaborg's hometown of Ishpeming, and we happen to have one of his old office chairs in our records center, along with some of his papers.)

[@InorganicVegan]

Well, what did Seaborg have for lunch? Fission chips? Eh? Eh? :D I'll see myself out now...

[@MrKlonkie_official]

No! Come back! That was beryllium-t.

[@InorganicVegan]

MrKlonkie Well, I'd like to come back, but now all of the good puns argon. What other puns there are out there is a real chemystery. I guess I could come up with one about sodium hypobromite? Eh... NaBrO.

[@MrKlonkie_official]

Diana Peña That was sodium gold. In-fact I feel like quite the Boron I zinc.

[@nicholastrombone9899]

Get out now

[@karlaorosco5646]

I had the honor of meeting him and driving him once as a student driver for Cal. He also loved that his last name was an anagram for Go Bears and he is the only Cal Chancellor who had a Rose Bowl and NCAA BB Championship. He liked to share these facts.

[@newperve]

"and only transmuted a tiny amount of gold" Still counts.

[@romantheflash]

I learned quite a lot from this, he sounds like an awesome guy, and he did a lot for science. I think I might go learn more about him.

[@quickminutetv4170]

“The Transuranium Elements” on KZbin is a 60’s film in which Seaborg himself talks about how these elements where created (cyclotron bombardment) and what they’re chemical properties are. If you want to know more about his work I highly recommend this video, even though it’s pretty technical stuff.

[@MaddMaddox77]

I live about 20 miles away from where he grew up. Glenn Seaborg is EVERYTHING up here!

[@seamusryan4319]

you have an amazing show and i make sure to check back every day for a new addition

[@jackwright2495]

Your videos are always so energetic and informative they should win a prize.

[@Sam5Neo]

Always a joy to watch your videos ..

[@higherresolution4490]

Excellent presentation! I learned a lot. BTY, there is one minor upgrade to the periodic table. The numbering system of columns. For example, column 17 is the halogens. Trivial, I know.

[@nekoalysssama]

Do a video about the snow in Egypt!!!

[@marcdeboer1280]

"In case you thought all he did was chemistry" LOL, I love how Hank always has those jokes that when you think about it a little bit it's pretty funny, love this guy.

[@amrmostafa4452]

-oids means "to resemble to something" -ides means the derivative of something. e.g.: Potassium chloride (the potassium salt of chlorine) That's why they changed the "Lanthanides and Actinides" into "Lanthanoids and Actinoids".

[@mileskidder3185]

I feel like there are just so many people that, just by looking at their lives, deserve the title of "Like a Boss." Created several elements, incredible achievements at a young age, married with six kids, re-wrote a large portion of the periodic table of elements, had a element named after him while he was alive. I think he qualifies.

[@MsJdeath]

This is now one of my favorite episodes of scishow. Good job hank. :)

[@blitzwaffe]

I didn't know Seaborg was an alchemist. Thanks SciShow!

[@beybladexkai]

Thank you for this amazing video. I learned MORE THAN A LOT from it.

[@affablegiraffable]

seaborg is the coolest name

[@AnnaSassins]

This guy needs a movie made about him. For real.

[@ayen789]

Awesome video! More amazing people stories please!

[@VictorLHouette]

Hitting the number 3 over and over makes Hank look like a rapper.... =D

[@Vixielicious]

But what about the gold?

[@seksigapanda]

same principal as with the other elements, just with led and different particles.

[@ragnkja]

The only way lead can become gold is through radioactive decay. Specifically, it has to, at the very least, emit two α particles and a β particle to reach the number of protons that gold has.

[@zbret]

At 1:19 Sg is circled to show it was found on earth, then later at 1:23, included in the "truly synthetic" list. Confused.

[@psynostic]

This is the first I've heard of Lanthanides and Actinides having been changed to "...oids", but it's an appreciable change as I come out of a semester of basic chemistry where we learn how to suffix non metals with "ide" and I've pondered why these two rows were named to end in such way. Now they sound more comparable as a "periodic table grouping" such as metaloid... lanthanoid and actinoid.

[@DriftingAimlessly]

In chemistry the suffix ide is used to denote and anion... ie chloride, oxide, bromide....ect. Thus the nomenclature of the previous lanthinide and actinide series would suggest them to be ions rather than neutral atoms... Therefore the name change was necessary.

[@SpecialAgentCake]

He died the year I was born. I am also deeply into this kind of science, and have studied it in my free time. Glenn, I salute you.

[@ragnkja]

Seaborgium was the _only_ element named after a still living person, because the IUPAC have since decided that elements can no longer be named after someone who is still alive.

[@SandwitchReaper]

Fact check performed, you are correct, sir. He is not just the first, but the only one.

[@jaieeke]

Nillie now there's​ oganesson

[@HIRAMECLARKEHOPS]

@@jaieeke True

[@DannyBeans]

Half credit to Enrico Fermi. He was still alive when "Fermium" was proposed, but died shortly before it became official.

[@nickelwrangler446]

@@DannyBeans i believe einstein only died shortly before it was proposed (and perhaps he was told of it) , though not sure the time regarding officiality

[@MrSlatra]

An error occurred, please try again later. _Learn More_

[@somethingtodowithme]

This wouldn't have happened if Glenn Seaborg had just left the Periodic Table alone! Way to screw everything up Glenn! I hope you're proud of yourself.

[@IIGrayfoxII]

I learnt that google fucked up youtube with google+ That is not synthetic but just stupid

[@Tesla_Death_Ray]

Italics. How?

[@MrSlatra]

_ before and after what you want to italicize. - before and after strikes through it... * bold I was actually trying to underline but I'm unsure how.

[@DeathcoreDame]

If you haven't done so already, you should make a video about aspartame.

[@realmslayer4045]

A wild SciShow appears! It uses GetSmarter! It's super affective.

[@Koop784]

Since you recently did the Alkenes/Alkynes episode of Crash Course Chemistry, that got me thinking about the butter vs margarine battle. I've heard some people say that margarine is WAY worse for you than butter, but from your description in the CC video it sounds like margarine is an unsaturated fat. Is there any truth to these claims? I'd be interested in seeing a few Scishow or Crash Course Health episodes.

[@toobles3]

From what I heard, Margarine is like one molecule away from being plastic, I could be wrong though I always feel butter is the better way to go.. Margarine tastes... eughh

[@MentalForIt]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat That is what margarine is, look at the heart disease parts for the health risks

[@XxThunderflamexX]

Most vegetable oils are cis-unsaturated fat - the carbon chain forms a kind of u-shape at the double bond. Margarine is made by hydrogenating that fat, turning the double bonds into single bonds, but isomerizes some of the fat into trans-unsaturated, which is more of a zig-zag shape.

[@LaupDown]

***** : Video is not playing. Its posting this message "An error occurred, please try again later."

[@kirkjamestkirk]

That's what I call an awesome episode :-)

[@Ravierave]

Why is this man so cool?

[@s3cr3tpassword]

he was also the only person to have an element name after him while he was alive. Every element named after a scientist was of a deceased one. But Seaborgium was the only alive to be there during the naming ceremony

[@8877dksljfa]

Got the periodic table. Seriously going to put it above my bed

[@ArturoStojanoff]

Oh my God... I'm never gonna be as cool as this guy. Not even nearly...

[@JacksonWelch]

Did you guys know Hank is famous? He's a singer!!

[@holben27]

Did you know that his brother is a famous YA novelist? He wrote the fault in our stars!!

[@JoshuaChowabc]

So cool!

[@StevenAcunaBG05]

omfg! this guy is from my hometown, southgate CA. we have his house next to our city hall! i see it every day=P

[@MystycCheez]

This guys seemed epic, why haven't I heard of him? :D

[@madhurmotwani9935]

I think the reason they renamed 'Lanthnides' to' Lanthanoids' (Lanthanum like) because they resemble the properties of Lanthanum ( Atomic Number 58) and 'Actinides' to 'Actinoids' (Actinium like)because they show some similarity to the properties of Actinium ( Atomic Number 89).

[@jpheitman]

My high school general science teacher (she also taught AP Bio) had Glenn T. Seaborg autograph a cutout of the periodic table's representation of Seaborgium. It may well be the only autographed element in existence.

[@nigeldupaigel]

Love the shows. Haha 3,20: ' Buutt'

[@irwinrussell60]

At about 2:00 I finally realized, "Oh, THAT'S who seaborgium is eponymous with."

[@lilyvanhoeydonck2397]

seems like the lad had a good life good career, family, reputation and invention. if only we could all be like that

[@nikolasimikic6416]

You guys should do a "The Science Behind SciShow" episode, where you go behind the scenes and show how you film the show, but also talk about the science behind the technology used to make it.

[@shiftyskelabonez9087]

He had six kids? I guess you could say he and his wife had a lot of...chemistry! *budum tiss* (I'm really bad at jokes.)

[@gabes7729]

You mentioned turning lead into good in the description, but never followed up on it. It sounded very interesting. Could at least add a link to the description please?

[@mssuperniz]

At the Berkeley National Laboratory, parking is assigned by level. The higher up you are, the closer you get to park. Unsurprisingly, the space right next to the door was labeled "Dr. Seaborg" until his death.

[@pillspop]

what about the gold, hank

[@OnceIWasBooker]

please can we have an episode about juno?

[@jahlaydominguez5761]

What I thought Hank would say at 00:15 - "Except turn lead into gold." What I was thinking when he said he did do it "Whoa, didn't know that was possible, cool"

[@Merecir]

Elements by country of Discovery: UK - 23 Sweden - 19 Germany - 19 USA - 17 France - 17 Russia - 6 Austria - 2 Denmark - 2 Spain - 2 Switzerland - 2 Finland - 1 Italy - 1 Romania - 1

[@MyRegularNameWasTaken]

And somewhere along the line, 'round 1997, my mother met him. Woot.

[@scott98390]

Just a random idea, but maybe putting a "percent funded meter" (while Hank is mentioning Subbable) at the end of each video might spur more people to donate.

[@clnmyjts]

yep...he will go down in history for offically creating art official elements AND getting the no bell prize!

[@jestermen11]

Can you make a video about synaptogenesis just about the basic retro detirminaton of the kind of synapse that is formed.

[@delvesdg]

Physics, Chemistry, and Scoodelipooping...... ahhhh what a life.

[@cthorm]

Glad to see another nuclear power pioneer get covered. It's past time we rediscovered the scarcely imaginable potential of peaceful nuclear power.

[@GabrielSparkletits]

Because -ide means it is negatively charged atom which exists for lanthanum or actinum. -oid nomencature fits better with previously established 'metalloids' grouping.

[@patriciahansenwithan]

because in my wobbly youth i hung around with some odd crowds, such as people in the tesla society, i happened to be at a presentation that concerned the periodic table, as it was in the 90's, and learned something new. a guy i think was named anderson took the periodic table and arranged it in a spiral so that a vertical line of elements all had some similar characteristics but i don't know what they were. then the elements in that line were ground up and mixed with epoxy and made into little disks. he was trying to sell them at a huge cost to use for healing. which i thought was hogwash, and i made some challenge that i forget what it was, and got him to give me a couple of the disks to take home and do something with. at the time i was running my house on photovoltaics, and a set of 2 volt batteries that weighed 140 pounds each that no one knew where they came from or where they had been. i had got 12 and had 6 hooked up and whenever one went bad, i put another in it's place. a frer some years when i was a running out and the voltage was not as it had been, i put the plastic disks on the ends of the battery array, and found that they ran well again for a couple years. before the disks, after dark it took about an hour for the system to go down to under 10vdc. with the disks it went down to 11 vdc and stayed there, but the house ran as if it was 12vdc. then when i hosed off the batteries one time the disk washed away, then the batteries finally were kaput so i got fork lift batteries.

[@JitsevdH]

Hank, do you also have a wide version of that poster, with the f-block in the right place and all electron configurations?

[@PercivalBlakeney]

Mebbe the names were changed to "Actinoids" and "Lanthinoids" so that they wouldn't (couldn't) be confused with some kind of conjugate ion. "Sodium Actinide" for instance.... has a certain ring to it. ^_^

[@walthansen6333]

There is a debate as to the date when Einstenium was approved, in regards as to wether Einstein was still alive. Therefore, was there 1 or 2 elements that were named after a person while that person was still alive.

[@neverspitatthewind]

do Milutin Milankovich and the Milankovich cycles!

[@daedra40]

Badass Seaborg.

[@DaHitch]

3:40 "It should be noted that we now call those things the actinoids and the lanthanoids, I don't know why they made that change but they did." You should totally ask that dude in Crash Course Chemistry he's like a chemistry wizard, I believe his name is Hank Gre... Oh, nvm. Just ask Prof. Martyn Poliakoff.

[@TeeKayFourTwoOnebeta]

I think we're all missing the most important thing here: Seaborg is one of the most awesome names in existence. I mean, come on. Aquatic posthumans.

[@willd6319]

I thought that Technetium was first lab created too. I had heard it was first found in scrap materials from an experiment.

[@anulovlos]

Please do a video on Sir William Ramsay, the man who made the Noble Gases noble. Many scientists have discovered new elements, but only Sir Ramsay discovered an entire group!

[@planetweed]

do one about Carl Gustav Jung and Myers and Briggs ...

[@CaesarsSalad]

Yo Hank, you forgot about the gold! Don't think we didn't notice!

[@iamtheonewhoyoulove]

the great and mighty youtube! cant even play its own fucking videos

[@kamelsamer5768]

0:24 "and only transmuted a tiny bit of gold", 1:47 "It requires particle accelerators and nuclear reactors etc..", that statement is for general public, nuclear reactors and tiny bit of gold folks! don't even think about it! lol

[@Pastelicious404]

Seaborgium

[@nat1XP]

Around 2:04 what's that box with angles labelled meant to be? on top of the periodic table.

[@Pinatabuster]

Can you please make a video on how methylation works?

[@benbenedict89]

an error occurred

[@charleshodapp2427]

Cool

[@mandemarso]

I love you and dr.doe 3

[@LeakInTheFridge]

WOOOOOOOO SEABORGIUM

[@Impured666]

kinda wonder what his 6 kids are up to these day and how many grand kids, it must be weird to be related to someone so influential to the world. P.S.weird to see no comments even after watching the whole video.

[@CrazyAsian1]

I personally have met Steven Seaborg who is one of his kids. He was a volunteer in my class and brought me his cool science magazines each week

[@WarlordShinkouhyou]

But the highest honor this man has achieved, was having a Beyblade named after him.

[@Pedrids]

I GOT HERE 2 MINUTES AFTER UPLOAD :D BEFORE 301

[@phuonghovan8092]

niceeee

[@mundaneexistance]

I just realised that if every subscriber donated $1 per week to scishow, that would be $1.2 million in funding every week :o

[@Theinventormind]

So you plug your DFTBA periodic table poster, But did post the link.

[@ivazeaandes3801]

Was it removed for some reason?

[@argothgods]

That was my dream but I now play video games and act as though I have the mental sense of a five year old...ahhh dreams, eye witness books and old 4th grade college textbooks;mostly gone.

[@sunabouzu1]

I had a teacher back in high school that had a signed copy of seaborgium, apparently she knew the guy before he died.

[@Kaeralho]

forgive me for my ignorance, but turning atoms into other atoms shouldn't be something worth of a physics nobel? is it possible to do that simply using chemistry? (I thought this was alchemy). I understand he perfected the periodic table but transmuting elements is done by using physics techniques, isn't it? thank you

[@puncheex2]

No, it's not possible. It requires nuclear chemistry, and plain chemistry only deals with the electron shells around the nucleus.

[@cthorm]

Alchemy is a pre-scientific discipline that correctly predicted the ability to transmute one substance into another, but did not have an accurate concept of what that would require fundamentally. Transmutation is nuclear chemistry (arguably physics), where subatomic particles are deliberately combined with existing atoms.

[@ragnkja]

This is where the boundaries between chemistry and physics become fuzzy.

[@Kaeralho]

puncheex2 yes, I thought chemistry (being the science of the atom's electronic orbital's interactions) couldn't be capable of making new elements (besides breaking heavy ones). I apologize for being so stupid but I never had heard the term "nuclear chemistry" before, since the atoms nuclei are held together by strong and weak nuclear forces, manipulating these phenomena required more than interacting with electrons, so I thought of that physics nobel thing. thank you, sir

[@thatplane3865]

I thought there was only 92 naturally occurring elements

[@Alienhunterofawesome]

I have watched youtube since 2006 launch first comment. Yay!!!

[@ericbal6158]

I WANT THE LAB COAT!!!!!!

[@signesartandanimation]

Make one about Niels Bohr.