Fermium

(Enrico Fermi) Fermium, the eighth discovered transuranium element of the actinideseries, was identified by Ghiorso and co-workers in 1952 in the debris from athermonuclear explosion in the pacific during work involving the University of CaliforniaRadiation Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.

The isotope produced was the 20-hour 255Fm. During 1953 and early 1954, while discoveryof elements 99 and 100 was withheld from publication for security reasons, a group fromthe Nobel Institute of Physics in Stockholm bombarded 238U with 16O ions, and isolated a30-min alpha-emitter, which they ascribed to 250-100, without claiming discovery of theelement. This isotope has since been identified positively, and the 30-min half-lifeconfirmed.