Background Information

When the periodic table was first invented there were places left for new elements to be discovered. One of the most puzzling spaces was 85. The element that was finally discovered that fit that place was Astatine. In 1940, at the University of California at Berkeley, three scientists discovered the new element. Dale R Corson, Kenneth R Mackenzie and Emilio Segrè  were working with a cyclotron, which is like a partial accelerator. It makes protons move very very fast, and then the protons hit atoms which causes the atoms to break into other elements. The scientists suggested that the name of the new element be Astatine because astatos is Greek for unstable.

 Emilio Segrè

www.aip.org/history/ historymatters/emilio.htm