History: Glenn Seaborg

["Mike Grissom" <mpg1@coastside.net>]

Radsafers,

The sad news was received tonight that Glenn Seaborg has died at
the age of 86 at his home in the Bay Area. It has been over a year
since the last time I briefly talked to him during one of my visits
at LBNL, and in no way had his intellectual fervor appeared
diminished despite being well into his 80's. Science, and Health
Physics which depends a great deal on the radionuclidic information
that he discovered along with his many colleagues, has lost another
great practioner.


The following is the notice available on the E.O. Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory's (LBNL) Web site:

----------
                     Glenn Seaborg Dies After a Life
                   Integral to History of 20th Century

                              February 26, 1999

                Contact:  Lynn Yarris, lcyarris@lbl.gov

BERKELEY, CA. -- Glenn Theodore Seaborg, Nobel
Laureate chemist, discoverer of 10 atomic elements including
plutonium and one that now bears his name, Associate
Director-at-Large of the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, University Professor of Chemistry for the
University of California, and co-founder and chairman of the
Lawrence Hall of Science, died early Thursday night (Feb.
25). He was 86.

Seaborg's death came while he was convalescing at home
in Lafayette, near Berkeley. The internationally renowned
chemist and educator had suffered a stroke on August
24, 1998, while in Boston for the national meeting of the
American Chemical Society. At the meeting, Seaborg was
named one of the "Top 75 Distinguished Contributors to
the Chemical Enterprise."

To say that Seaborg had a high-profile career is an
understatement. He is in the Guiness Book of World
Records for having the longest entry in "Who's Who
in America." In addition to sharing the 1951 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry with the late Edwin McMillan for research
into the transuranium elements (those beyond
uranium on the periodic table), Seaborg received the
National Medal of Science in 1991, this nation's highest
award for scientific achievement. He was a member of the
Manhattan Project, Chancellor of the University of
California at Berkeley (1958-1961), and Chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission (the predecessor to today's
U.S. Department of Energy) under Presidents Kennedy,
Johnson, and Nixon (1961-1971). He also served as
president for both the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society.

Seaborg had a life-long association with the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Commenting
on Seaborg's death, Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank
said, "Dr. Seaborg was a true giant of the 20th Century, a
legend in the annals of scientific discovery.  His daily
commitment to matters of the laboratory, even in retirement
as associate director-at-large and as an active researcher, was
an inspiration to us all. Berkeley Lab is proud to have been
Dr. Seaborg's home for so many of his discoveries, and we
are fortunate to have benefited from his international acclaim. 

"For his service to science, to education, and to our nation, we
honor Dr. Seaborg's distinguished lifetime and will forever
treasure his contributions to our institutions and to our lives.
We who have been touched by his wisdom, his energy, and
his tireless devotion to our profession will miss him."

Said University of California President Richard Atkinson,
"Glenn Seaborg gave his magnificent intellect to the world and
his heart and soul to the University of California. He once said
that everything he had achieved in a lifetime of towering
accomplishment he owed to his association with UC. Few
universities have been given so much in return. As a Nobel
Prize-winning scientist who revolutionized our understanding
of matter, and as a superb professor, chancellor, laboratory
leader, and champion of science education for generations of
California's children, Dr. Seaborg has earned a proud and
permanent place in the University's history. We will miss him
deeply."

Said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl, "The world
today has lost a great man of science. At the University of
California, Berkeley, we have lost a revered member of our
campus family. We cherished Glenn Seaborg, and we will
miss him dearly. He embraced this place as his family, and for
more than six decades he loved it as deeply as anyone could.
Berkeley, in return, loved him with its whole heart." 

Seaborg had a long and distinguished career not only in
science but in education and public service. 

 "I consider Glenn Seaborg, among all the faculty of the
University of California, to be the most distinguished in all the
four areas of excellence in which we judge faculty - research,
teaching, university service and service to the country," said
Clark Kerr, former president of the University of California
and a long-time friend who nominated Seaborg to be UC
Berkeley chancellor in 1958. "He was the best balanced, most
distinguished faculty member at the most balanced
distinguished university in the country."

Seaborg was born in 1912 in Ishpeming, Michigan. He
received his B.A. from UCLA in 1934 and his Ph.D. in
chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1937. His life-long association
with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory began in
1934 when, as a graduate student, he went to work at the UC
Radiation Laboratory (the forerunner to LBNL). He joined
the UC Berkeley faculty in 1939 and, following his time at the
AEC helm, returned to Berkeley where he continued his
search for new elements and isotopes.

Seaborg is perhaps best known for his role in the discovery of
plutonium. This took place in February 1941, when Seaborg,
McMillan, Joseph Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl, using the
60-inch cyclotron built by Ernest Lawrence, bombarded a
sample of uranium with deuterons and transmuted it into
plutonium. In 1944, Seaborg formulated the "actinide
concept" of heavy element electronic structure which
predicted that the actinides -- including the first eleven
transuranium elements -- would form a transition series
analogous to the rare earth series of lanthanide elements.
Called one of the most significant changes in the periodic table
since Mendeleev's 19th century design, the actinide concept
showed how the transuranium elements fit into the periodic
table. Seaborg and his colleagues used this concept as a
stepping stone to the creation of a succession of transuranium
elements, including americium, curium, berkelium,
californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium,
and seaborgium. When "seaborgium" was officially accepted
as the name for element 106 in August, 1997, it marked the
first time an element had ever been named for a living person.
Seaborg called it his greatest honor.

Throughout his research career, Seaborg was also a champion
for science education. In addition to his role in establishing the
Lawrence Hall of Science, he was a member of President
Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education,
which produced the landmark 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk:
The Imperative for Educational Reform." He was also a
primary mover behind "Great Explorations in Math and
Science," a leading Internet resource for science teachers.

Seaborg was also a major advocate for nuclear arms control,
international cooperation in science, and conservation of
natural resources. He wrote more than 500 scientific articles
and numerous books including an autobiography soon to be
published entitled: A Chemist in the White House: From the
Manhattan Project to the End of the Cold War. He held
more than 40 patents, including the only ones for a chemical
element (americium and curium), and had been awarded more
than 50 honorary doctoral degrees. 

Seaborg is survived by his wife Helen Griggs Seaborg. They
were married on June 6, 1942. Their first child, Peter Glenn
Seaborg, died in 1997. They have five surviving children:
Lynne Seaborg Cobb, David Seaborg, Steve Seaborg, Eric
Seaborg, and Dianne Seaborg.

Details of a planned memorial service will be announced at a
later date.

----------
The above may be viewed on the Web at:

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/glenn-seaborg-obit.html



Michael P. Grissom
Phone:  (650) 712-1718
Fax (call by voice to confirm):  (650) 712-1718
Email:  mpg1@coastside.net



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