Chapter 7

☢️ The actinides

The actinides, elements 89 to 103, sit in the second row below the main table, and every one of them is radioactive. Uranium fuels nuclear power, plutonium powers some spacecraft and americium sits in many smoke alarms. After uranium, the elements were made in reactors and particle accelerators, and their names tell the story: the planets beyond Uranus, the cities and states of the labs that made them, and great scientists.

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