Lawrencium | Educational Word Lists and Word Search Games

Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, laboratories from the Soviet Union and the United States claimed the synthesis of lawrencium of varying quality. While the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) initially established lawrencium as the official name for the element and gave the American team credit for the discovery, this was reevaluated in 1997, giving both teams (Soviet and American) shared credit for the discovery but not changing the element's name.

Actinide Chemical Elements

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The actinide series encompasses the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium.

These fifteen actinide elements [Actinium (Ac), Thorium (Th), Protactinium (Pa), Uranium (U), Neptunium (Np), Plutonium (Pu), Americium (Am), Curium (Cm), Berkelium (Bk), Californium (Cf), Einsteinium (Es), Fermium (Fm), Mendelevium (Md), Nobelium (No), Lawrencium (Lr)], have very large atomic and ionic radii and exhibit an unusually large range of physical properties.