Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews The chemistry calendar rolls around to National Chemistry Week each year in October, a time of year when classes are in full swing and the weather is cooling off. In recognition of this year’s NCW theme, “Chemistry—It’s Elemental”, two of this month’s book reviews feature books on elements. Jeremy Bernstein’s Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element and Tom Zoellner’s Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World are two books that will add to your knowledge of these two, ahem, critical elements. This month’s third book expands the theme from elements to compounds. Check out Richard L. Myers’s The 100 Most Important Chemical Compounds: A Reference Guide. Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element by Jeremy Bernstein Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 2009. 194 pp. ISBN 978-0801475177 (paper). $17.95 reviewed by Luis D. Montes
A number of general interest books have been written that describe the history and uses of specific elements from the periodic table (1–3). One of the more recent examples is Plutonium, written by New Yorker science writer Jeremy Bernstein. Bernstein has written numerous books, including many related to 20th century physics and prominent scientists from that era, including Einstein and Oppenheimer. He has taught physics at the university level and was an intern at Los Alamos in 1957. His familiarity with these areas helps provide clarity and interesting insight into the unique nature and history of plutonium, the element responsible for the destructive force of the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. When I first noticed the cover of this book, I was intrigued by the background image, a gray number 49 set against a black background. I was aware that the atomic number of plutonium is 94, but I could not think of a reason the number 49 would be associated with the element plutonium. Surely this was not just an oversight on the part of the cover illustrator. Fortunately, a brief explanation for the 49 is provided in the Prologue, with a more detailed explanation provided later in the book. Along the same lines Bernstein points out that, prior to the assignment of its official name, plutonium was often referred to as “ekaosmium”. Chemists will be familiar with the use of “eka” attached to names of known elements, indicating that the element in question falls below the named element in the periodic table. What might be surprising is the use of the name ekaosmium since this name indicates that plutonium would be located directly below osmium in the periodic table, in contrast to its current placement. Such placement would indicate that plutonium possesses chemical properties similar to osmium. Readers today should remember that what we know today has not always been known: to illustrate this point Bernstein includes figures show-
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ing the modern periodic table and a pre-World War II periodic table. [Ed. note: See p 1123 (Fig. 3) and p 1124 (Fig. 4) for pre-WWII and Seaborg’s post-WWI I periodic tables.] As the author explains, once enough plutonium had been produced to study its properties, it became clear that the expected placement of plutonium was incorrect. This is just one example Bernstein uses to point out the rather unexpected chemical properties of this element. The next-to-last chapter provides a rough sketch that explains some of plutonium’s anomalous behavior. This is perhaps the most technical chapter, but it will still be accessible to anyone who has had a universitylevel general chemistry course. Since the history of the discovery of plutonium is so closely tied to the discovery of uranium, Bernstein opens the book with a history of uranium. Although he provides some technical background for readers, specifically in the chapter just mentioned as well as in an early chapter about the periodic table, much of the book is devoted to the history of the discovery of plutonium and the impact it has had on the military and political climate of the world over the past 70 years. Most of the book focuses on the political and technical difficulties in the discovery and utilization of plutonium. Throughout the book Bernstein weaves in accounts of the people who were involved in this work. For a chemist familiar with the technical details of the discovery of plutonium and its uses, the inclusion of the personal perspectives and roles of these important individuals will be most useful. As just one example, Bernstein spends considerable time explaining the uncertainty that existed around the time of World War II in terms of who knew how much about the technical details of uranium and plutonium necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. Bernstein closes with a chapter titled “Now What?” in which he directly addresses some of the political and safety concerns resulting from the worldwide production of plutonium. Among the more interesting items is that in 1942 the world’s total plutonium supply was just a few millionths of a gram, while by 2004 it was about 1,740 metric tons of nonmilitary plutonium plus 155 metric tons of military plutonium. One of the political realties he discusses is the need to resolve what to do with much of the plutonium that is no longer necessary. For the most part this book is accessible to anyone who has had some high school chemistry, and the few details that require a slightly higher level of understanding of chemistry and physics will not prevent readers from following the interesting political and biographical accounts Bernstein includes throughout the text. This book will be a useful addition to any high school or university library, and teachers of chemistry at the high school and university level will find many interesting anecdotes to help enliven their presentations on nuclear chemistry of the impact of chemistry on society.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 86 No. 10 October 2009 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
Chemical Education Today edited by
Cheryl Baldwin Frech University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
Literature Cited 1. Emsley, John. The13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus; John Wiley & Sons: New York, 2000. 2. Lane, Nick. Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World; Oxford University Press: New York, 2004. 3. Zoellner, Tom. Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World; Viking Press: New York, 2009.
Supporting JCE Online Material
http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Oct/abs1180.html Keywords Full text (HTML and PDF)
Luis D. Montes is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034;
[email protected].
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 10 October 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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