American physicist · 1912–2002
Kenneth Ross MacKenzie
Kenneth MacKenzie co-discovered astatine in 1940 as a young physicist at Ernest Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory.
How Astatine was found
MacKenzie, an expert on cyclotrons, helped run the bombardment of bismuth with alpha particles that produced element 85. With Dale Corson and Emilio Segrè he measured the new element’s radiation and showed it was not a known isotope.
Shared the credit
The discovery is credited jointly to these scientists.
Life and career
Born 1912 · Died 2002
MacKenzie worked on cyclotrons and radar during the war and then joined the University of California, Los Angeles, as professor of physics. He became a pioneer of plasma physics, developing the multipole confinement devices still used in plasma research.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1940.