URANIUM

Uranium is a dense, hard metallic element that is silvery

white in color. It is ductile, malleable, and capable of
taking a high polish. In air the metal tarnishes and
when finely divided breaks into flames. It is a relatively
poor conductor of electricity. Though discovered (1789)
by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who
named it after the then recently discovered planet
Uranus, the metal itself was first isolated (1841) by
French chemist Eugène-Melchior Péligot by the
reduction of uranium tetrachloride (UCl4) with
potassium.
 The element uranium became the subject
of intense study and broad interest after
German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz
Strassmann discovered in late 1938 the
phenomenon of nuclear fission in uranium
bombarded by slow neutrons. Italian-born
American physicist Enrico Fermi suggested
(early 1939) that neutrons might be among
the fission products and could thus
continue the fission as a chain reaction.
Hungarian-born American physicist
Leo Szilard, American physicist Herbert L.
Anderson, French chemist Frédéric
Joliot-Curie, and their coworkers
confirmed (1939) this prediction;
later investigation showed that an average of 21/2 neutrons per atom are released
during fission. Those discoveries led to the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
(December 2, 1942), the first atomic bomb test (July 16, 1945), the first atomic bomb
dropped in warfare (August 6, 1945), the first atomic-powered submarine (1955), and
the first full-scale nuclear-powered electrical generator (1957).