A Tale of a Mole Named Berkelium

A long time ago, in December of 1949, a great mole was born. His parents, Glenn T. Seaborg, Stanley G. Thompson and Albert Ghisorso were proud of the little thing and named him after the University in which they worked. His name was Berkelium. He was born as a healthy young mole. When 6.02*10^23 atoms of him are put together, he forms an excellently sized 247 unit mole.

Berkelium was born in a very interesting manner. His parents were extremely eager to have young Berkelium brought into this world so they went ahead and allowed his birth to be one of class and a whole lot of excitement. His parents used a cyclotron bombardment of milligram amounts of Americium with helium ions. There he was, Berkelium. At first sight his parents could not distinguish the color of his metallic self but other experts believe he resembles a silvery white metallic, or gray element.

Hours after birth Berkelium’s parents went into deep shock. It was discovered that their precious young mole was radioactive. This does have its advantages but the poor parents could not believe that their own mole would have this kind of disorder.

A few years afterward, one of Berkelium’s greatest days occurred. He was accepted into a club. Not just any club, but he was going to be a member of the periodic table of elements. He was placed in the group actinide. What a thrill for such a young mole. He was going to be famous all around the world and not only that, he was officially named in five languages!

In 1962 when Berkelium was eleven years old, it was discovered that he had his first date. Being a cation and all, he was looking for a lovely anion that would make him happy. His first choice was chloride. Though the two at a combined state weighed only 3 billionth of a gram, it was the first visible pure berkelium compound. Later on it was discovered that he also went with iodide, bromide, oxide and other halogens.