What is Nobelium?
Nobelium is an element contained within the periodic table and represents a radioactive metallic substance, classified as No and with an atomic number of 102. It can be created as a generally unstable isotope through the bombardment of curium with carbon ions, and was discovered in 1957 at the Nobel Institute of Physics in Stockholm, Sweden, wherein the created isotope had a half life of 10 minutes. In 1958 another group of scientists managed to recreate the experiment, but with a more limited half-life. An isotope of nobelium, at its most stable level (nobelium -259), has a radioactive half life of 58 minutes, at which point it decays into fermium -255 through alpha decay, or alternatively into mendelevium by process of electron capture. As an element that can only be produced in very small quantities, and with an extremely limited half life, there are no current scientific uses of nobelium.
Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist who lived from 1833 to 1896, is known for discovering dynamite and for using his fortune to institute the prestigious group of awards known as the Nobel Prizes. It is less well-known that the synthetic element with atomic number 102, nobelium, was named after him. Nobelium was discovered in 1957, the next to the last of the transuranic actinoids to be discovered. The discovery of nobelium has an interesting history. Its discovery was announced in 1957 by physicists at the Nobel Institute in Sweden. The discovery was made as a result of bombarding curium with carbon nuclei, and confirmed at several other laboratories, with the name nobelium proposed. But then the findings were withdrawn. In 1958, a team at the University of California at Berkeley, tried again, this time using carbon ions, and though unable to confirm the earlier reports, they were able to, eventually, produce an isotope of 102. The team of Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Torbjørn Sikkel
