Glenn Theodore Seaborg (/ˈsiːbɔːrɡ/ SEE-borg; April 19, 1912 – February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

After sharing the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan, he received approximately 50 honorary doctorates and numerous other awards and honors.

He did not take an interest in science until his junior year when he was inspired by Dwight Logan Reid, a chemistry and physics teacher at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts.

[8] Seaborg graduated from Jordan in 1929 at the top of his class and received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1933.

[9] Seaborg received his PhD in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1937 with a doctoral thesis on the "Interaction of Fast Neutrons with Lead",[10][11] in which he coined the term "nuclear spallation".

As a graduate student in the 1930s Seaborg performed wet chemistry research for his advisor Gilbert Newton Lewis,[12] and published three papers with him on the theory of acids and bases.

[13][14][15] Seaborg studied the text Applied Radiochemistry by Otto Hahn, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, and it had a major impact on his developing interests as a research scientist.

[20] University of California, Berkeley, physicist Edwin McMillan led a team that discovered element 93, which he named neptunium in 1940.

[22] Thus, on March 28, 1941, Seaborg, physicist Emilio Segrè and Berkeley chemist Joseph W. Kennedy were able to show that plutonium (then known only as element 94) was fissile, an important distinction that was crucial to the decisions made in directing Manhattan Project research.

[24] In addition to plutonium, he is credited as a lead discoverer of americium, curium, and berkelium, and as a co-discoverer of californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and seaborgium, the first element named after a living person.

His patent on curium never proved commercially viable because of the element's short half-life, but americium is commonly used in household smoke detectors and thus provided a good source of royalty income to Seaborg in later years.

Prior to the test of the first nuclear weapon, Seaborg joined with several other leading scientists in a written statement known as the Franck Report (secret at the time but since published) unsuccessfully calling on President Truman to conduct a public demonstration of the atomic bomb witnessed by the Japanese.

[27] After the conclusion of World War II and the Manhattan Project, Seaborg was eager to return to academic life and university research free from the restrictions of wartime secrecy.

In 1946, he added to his responsibilities as a professor by heading the nuclear chemistry research at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory operated by the University of California on behalf of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

Seaborg was named one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Men in America" by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1947 (along with Richard Nixon and others).

His term coincided with a relaxation of McCarthy-era restrictions on students' freedom of expression that had begun under his predecessor, Clark Kerr.

[29] In October 1958, Seaborg announced that the university had relaxed its prior prohibitions on political activity on a trial basis,[30] and the ban on communists speaking on campus was lifted.

San Francisco columnist Herb Caen was fond of pointing out that Seaborg's surname is an anagram of "Go Bears", a popular cheer at UC Berkeley.

[31] Seaborg was proud of the fact that the Cal Bears won their first and only National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship in 1959, while he was chancellor.

[32] He served on the Faculty Athletic Committee for several years and was the co-author of a book, Roses from the Ashes: Breakup and Rebirth in Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletics (2000), concerning the Pacific Coast Conference recruiting scandal, and the founding of what is now the Pac-12, in which he played a role in restoring confidence in the integrity of collegiate sports.

[35] After appointment by President John F. Kennedy and confirmation by the United States Senate, Seaborg was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1961 to 1971.

[39] Seaborg enjoyed a close relationship with President Lyndon Johnson and influenced the administration to pursue the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

His experimental technique, using the lab's Bevalac particle accelerator, was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms by bombarding it with carbon and neon nuclei traveling near the speed of light.

[47] Seaborg's technique would have been far too expensive to enable routine manufacturing of gold, but his work was close to the mythical Philosopher's Stone.

It described stark realities like a significant number of functionally illiterate high schoolers, plummeting student performance, and international competitors breathing down our necks.

With no car, this was no easy feat, but one of Caliente's newest deputy sheriffs turned out to be a recent graduate of the Cal Berkeley chemistry department and was more than happy to do a favor for Seaborg.

[63] (In recent years, after both men's passings, it has been discovered that physicist colleague Edward J. Lofgren was also descended from the Pemer family.

)[64] Seaborg even responded to the Swedish king's Nobel prize toast in his mother's native region's dialect,[65] which he described as "It was as if a Swede had ''y'alled" in English with a Southern Accent."".

[66] On August 24, 1998, while in Boston to attend a meeting by the American Chemical Society, Seaborg suffered a stroke, which led to his death six months later on February 25, 1999, at his home in Lafayette.

He held more than 40 patents—among them the only patents ever issued for chemical elements, americium and curium, and received more than 50 doctorates and honorary degrees in his lifetime.