mendelevium

views updated

mendelevium (symbol Md) Radioactive, metallic element that is the ninth of the transuranic elements in the actinide series. US physicist Albert Ghiorso (1915– ) and colleagues at the University of California first synthesized it in 1955 by the alpha-particle bombardment of einsteinium-253. It is named after the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev who devised the periodic table. Properties: at.no. 101; r.a.m. 258; most stable isotope Md258 (half-life, two months).

More From encyclopedia.com