Cunningham, B.B. (Burris) [Manhattan Project] / Werner, L.B. [Manhattan Project Veteran].

The First Isolation of a Synthetic Element 94 Pu 239 [Paper 1.8]. [Stamped: “Radiation Laboratory Reprint Number 1949 – 8 6”].

Radiation Laboratory, c. 1949. Octavo. pages 51 – 78 of the 1949-Reprint of the original Metallurgical Project Report from the years 1942 – 1943. With images and diagrams. Original Offprint / Stapled Wrappers. Very good condition with some minor signs of wear only. From the library of american physicist, Gerald Holton. Also included is Paper 1.9 by J.W.Kennedy / M.L.Perlman / E. Segre and A.C. Wahl – “Formation of the 50-Year Element 94 from Deuteron Bombardment of U238” and also Paper 1.10 by C.S.Garner / N.A.Bonner / G.T.Seaborg – “Search for Elements 94 and 93 in Nature – Presence of 94 239 in Carnotite” – [″This article was issued as a secret report in connection with the Plutonium Project in August 1942”].

Burris Cunningham was a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (″Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project. He also served as Assistant Section Chief of Basic Chemistry and Service in Group C-I Separations Studies and Basic Chemistry of the Heavy Elements, which was led by Glenn T. Seaborg.
Cunningham joined the Met Lab in June 1942. At the Met Lab, he was responsible for characterizing the chemical properties of plutonium. Together, Cunningham and Louis B. Werner were the first to isolate a visible quantity of plutonium on August 20, 1942.
On September 10, 1942, Cunningham and Werner were also the first to weigh a pure compound of the plutonium. They used their own ultramicrochemistry techniques to purify microgram quantities of cyclotron-produce plutonium. Their final sample weighed 2.77 micrograms. These techniques would be needed for the later large-scale production of plutonium in Hanford, Washington.

Early Years: Burris Bell Cunningham was born on February 16, 1912 in Springer, New Mexico. Before going to the University of Southern California (USC), he briefly worked as Assistant Postmaster of Springer.
Cunningham only stayed at USC for one year before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley in 1931. In 1935, he received his B.S. degree in Chemistry. He stayed at Berkeley for his Ph.D. in Biochemistry, which he earned in 1940.

Later Years: Cunningham returned to Berkeley in 1946 to work as an assistant professor of chemistry. While working at Berkeley, he and his coworkers became the first to isolate in weighable quantities a variety of heavy synthetic elements: americium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium. They also isolated neptunium and curium.

Cunningham’s work in the field of ultramicrochemistry led him to become the world’s leading chemical investigator of actinide elements and one of the top inorganic chemists at the time. At Berkeley, he completed his research at the Radiation Laboratory. In 1948, he was promoted to Associate Professor and in 1953, he earned his full professorship.
At the age of fifty-nine, Burris Cunningham died on March 28, 1971 in Berkeley, California. (Source: Atomic Heritage Foundation)

• Keywords: Manhattan Project · Nuclear Physics · Pamphlets Collection – Harvard · Physics – Rare
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 29925AB

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