Word: plutonium
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...boundaries between international and national action," they reported, "we have grasped the fortunate circumstance that a dividing line can be drawn between dangerous and nondangerous activities." In short, they based their plan on scientists' belief that 1) atomic bombs can be made only with uranium, or with plutonium produced from it,* 2) neither uranium nor plutonium in certain mixtures (which are called denatured) can be made explosive except by extremely difficult, large-scale, time-consuming processes...
...important part of the plan is that the Authority's plants for producing "dangerous" uranium or plutonium would, like the know-how of the bomb, ultimately be distributed with equality among all important nations. "The real protection," said the five, "will lie in the fact that if any nation seizes the plants or the stockpiles that are situated in its territory, other nations [besides receiving clear warning] will have similar facilities and materials situated within their own borders so that the act of seizure need not place them at a disadvantage...
...Uranium 235 and plutonium can be denatured; such denatured materials do not readily lend themselves to the making of atomic explosives, but. . . can be used for the peaceful applications of atomic energy...
...speck which the General could not see was plenty for the chemists. Working with solutions measured in microlitres (7,000ths of a teaspoon), they accurately determined plutonium's chemical properties. Then they devised a complex process for separating it from the fiercely radioactive by-products of the uranium-plutonium pile at Hanford, Washington. The pile produced at least ico different byproducts. Most are unstable isotopes of familiar elements (the same periodic numbers but different atomic weights...
Eventually the chemists learned so much about plutonium that they decided to use their new techniques in looking for it in nature. In pitchblende, that mineral Pandora's box of exploding elements, they found unmistakable traces: one part in 100,000,000,000,000. This was the first time that the discovery of a man-made element had led to its identification in a natural...