Edwin McMillan
American physicist (1907-1991)
- Fame54.3
- Momentum0.0
- United States rank#186
Source-basedFalling
- Fame54.3
- Momentum0.0
- United States rank#186
- Scientists rank#150
- Wikipedia1.6K
Lived 1907–1991, aged 84United States
United StatesSummary
Updated 2026-06-08
He pushed past uranium on the periodic table, synthesizing neptunium in 1940 — the first element that didn't exist on Earth until someone built it in a lab.
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About
Edwin Mattison McMillan graduated from Caltech and earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1933, then joined Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory where he discovered oxygen-15 and beryllium-10. In 1940 he produced neptunium, the first transuranium element, work that would earn him half of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Glenn Seaborg. World War II pulled him into microwave radar at MIT, sonar development for the Navy, and then the Manhattan Project in 1942, where he helped establish Los Alamos and led teams on the gun-type bomb design while contributing to the implosion weapon. After the…
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Fame
Falling54.3
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
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Historical22.1
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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