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What
the name means:
Uranium was named after the planet Uranus
that had been first observed in 1781.
Uranus, in turn, was named after
Ouranos, the Greek god of the sky and
father of Titan.
Who
identified
uranium?
Pitchblende has been used for its yellow
colour since Roman times. It has been
detected in the paint used on the walls of
a Roman villa near the Bay of Naples in
Italy. From the Middle Ages, pitchblende
was the "secret" ingredient that coloured
glassware yellow-green colour
The element uranium was identified by the
German chemist, Martin Heinrich Klaproth,
in Berlin in 1789. He was analysing an ore
called pitchblende (mostly composed of
uranium dioxide). Uranium metal was
isolated by a French chemist,
Eugène-Mechior Péligot in 1841.
About
uranium: It was
not until 1896 that the French physicist,
Henry Becquerel, discovered that uranium
was radio-active. He found out by accident.
He had left a sample of pitchblende on a
photographic plate and noticed that the ore
had fogged the plate, as exposing it to
poor light would have done. He concluded
that the ore must be emitting some kind of
ray. It was not until 1902 that the concept
of radio-active decay started to be
understood.
Uranium is a silvery metal that is used as
a fuel in nuclear reactors. |
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