National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
Support
Connect
About
Advisors and Directors
FAQs
Projects
History
Key Documents
Lesson Plans
Project Sites
Timeline
Resources
Tours
Profiles
News Archive
Science
History Page
Heavy Water Reactors
August 2, 2017
As scientists decided which materials they would use to build the early nuclear reactors, some staked their country’s nuclear programs on small amounts of a substance practically indistinguishable from water.
History Page
Discovery of Mendelevium
June 9, 2017
Mendelevium, or element 101, was discovered at the Berkeley Rad Lab in 1955 using advanced techniques and tools.
History Page
Mystery of the Atom – 1900-1939
June 5, 2014
During the early part of the twentieth century, physicists and chemists toyed with the idea of obtaining energy from atoms.
History Page
Science Behind the Atom Bomb
The U.S. developed two types of atomic bombs during the Second World War.
History Page
Uranium
By 1938, the confused chemistry of uranium became the "topic of the day" at laboratories everywhere.
History Page
Plutonium
Plutonium was first produced and isolated on December 14, 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley.
History Page
Isotope Separation Methods
How to separate the much more potent U-235 from its abundant relative, U-238 consumed thousands of hours and millions of dollars.
History Page
Nuclear Fission
June 4, 2014
In the 1930s, scientists observed and explained nuclear fission--splitting an atom--for the first time.
History Page
Early Atomic Science
In 1914, novelist H. G. Wells envisioned an atomic bomb that would produce a continual radioactive explosion in his book "The World Set Free."