Albert Ghiorso

Albert Ghiorso (born July 15, 1915) is an American nuclear scientist who helped discover numerous chemical elements on the periodic table. He was born in Vallejo, California and grew up in Alameda, California. As a teenager, he built radio circuitry and earned a reputation for establishing radio contacts at distances that outdid the military. Albert Einstein was his idol scientist. He received his BS in electrical engineering from the University ... more

Albert Ghiorso (born July 15, 1915) is an American nuclear scientist who helped discover numerous chemical elements on the periodic table. He was born in Vallejo, California and grew up in Alameda, California. As a teenager, he built radio circuitry and earned a reputation for establishing radio contacts at distances that outdid the military. Albert Einstein was his idol scientist. He received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. After graduation, he worked for a company that produced emergency communication devices, and invented the world's first commercial Geiger counter, which evolved into his participation in the Manhattan Project. He was introduced to Glenn T. Seaborg through a mutual friendship between their wives who also worked as secretaries at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. (Likewise, Helen Griggs Seaborg was Ernest Orlando Lawrence's secretary when she met Glenn Seaborg.) Seaborg and Ghiorso's collaboration was most... less