The design is inspired by the work of Albert Einstein and images collected from early particle accelerators, such as those at Cern and Fermilab. The arrows are from one of these annotated (and unattributed) images indicating the direction of collisions. An abstracted ‘collider’ pattern is shown in the background.

Fact Box

Uses

Einsteinium has no uses outside research.

History

Einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the first thermonuclear explosion which took place on a Pacific atoll, on 1 November 1952. Fall-out material, gathered from a neighbouring atoll, was sent to Berkeley, California, for analysis. There it was examined by Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso, and Bernard Harvey. Within a month they had discovered and identified 200 atoms of a new element, einsteinium, but it was not revealed until 1955.