Alabamium … Have You Heard of It? Fred Allison Was Way Ahead of His Time
Fred Allison at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University). |
Who was Fred Allison? A man way ahead of his time and peers.
“Dr. Fred C. Allison (1882-1974) was a pioneering physicist whose controversial methods of scientific observation identified two chemicals of the periodic table: alabamine (now astatine) and virginium (now francium). Allison founded the physics department at what is now Auburn University where he taught and conducted research for 30 years.” Auburn Physics Department
So, what’s his story?
Dr. Allison developed a new way to discover elements in the periodic table. Yep, this was back when we didn’t know what they all were.
Time magazine has the story … well, they actually covered this way back in 1930 and 1932.
Science: Alabamium
Of the 92 elements which the late great Russian Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendelèeff (1834-1907) predicates with his Periodic Law, 16 have been discovered since 1894.* Two remain to be isolated—eka-iodine and eka-cesium.† Last week Dr. Fred Allison and Edgar Jackson Murphy of Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, Ala., reported that they had “evidence of considerable weight for the presence” of eka-cesium in certain salts they had reduced from lepidolite, a form of mica, and pollucite, a mineral consisting chiefly of cesium, aluminum and silicon. When they break down their salts they will get a soft silvery-white metal which will look and react much as do the alkali metals lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium. When eka-cesium is isolated, then Messrs. Allison & Murphy will have the pleasant problem of naming it. The recent tendency for such names has been after places—hafnium (1922) for Hafnia (Copenhagen), masurium (1924) for the Masurian Lakes, rhenium (1924) for the Rhine, illinium (1926) for Illinois. Hence, for eka-cesium, alabamium is appropriate for the state in which the discoverers work.
Initially, Allison wanted to name the element Alabamium. He later changed that to Alabamine.
What of the other element?
Education: Alabamine & Virginium
With an air of “There, that will convince them,” Professor Fred Allison of Alabama Polytechnic Institute last week slapped on his desk a fresh copy of the American Chemical Society’s Journal. “Them,” referred to everyone who doubted that Professor Allison had discovered Element No. 87, or eka-cesium (now known as Francium). in 1930 and Element No. 85 (now known as Astatine), or eka-iodine last April (1932) by means of his new magneto-optical machine.
“Them” referred particularly to Professor Jacob Papish of Cornell, who last autumn recognized eka-cesium with the x-ray spectrograph. With an x-ray spectrograph Professor B. Smith Hopkins of the University of Illinois discovered the third last unknown element, No. 61, of the Periodic Table, which he named illinium (TIME, March 22, 1926).
Professor Allison, 50, asked scientists to call the element virginium. after the State of his birth. He asked them to call Element No. 85 —a halogen with fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine—alabamine, after the State whose Polytechnic Institute at Auburn (physics department) he has headed for ten years.
Alas, Allison was denied the reward of having his work cited as the discovery of these two elements. Eventually his worked gained respect, but the recognition had already been passed to another scientist. Allison was just way ahead of his peers. They chose to go with what was then the accepted method of discovery.
Allison easily fits the mold of this video. Don’t be afraid to try. Allison did and he actually didn’t fail. Those around him failed to see what was obvious to Allison. Do you have a vision? Live it.
