Johan Gadolin

In nature the element occurs as a mixture of six stable isotopes gadolinium 158, 160, 156, and 157,155,154,152. The Gadolinium-157 isotope has the highest thermal neutron capture cross-section of any known stable element. Gadolinium was discovered by a Swiss chemist in 1880 named Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac when he “recorded previously unknown spectroscopic lines in an oxide preparation taken from the mineral samarskite” (Chemicool). In 1886, French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran confirmed Marignac’s previous discovery “reported that its spectral lines varied according to the source from which it came” (RSC). Boisbaudran suggested the name gadolinium for the new element after the 18th century chemist and mineralogist Johan Gadolin. Pure metallic gadolinium was first prepared by French chemist and engineer Felix Trombe in 1935. A few months later Georges Urbain, Pierre Weiss, and Felix Trombe discovered that gadolinium becomes ferromagnetic at about room temperature, which was the first pure element to show this property other than the three ‘classical’ metals iron, nickel and cobalt. Along with this discovery they also found that gadolinium becomes more ferromagnetic than iron but only at very low…

Cheerleaders like Johan Norberg and Thomas Friedman argue that globalization is inevitable and mainly positive, whereas other critics seem to have slightly different views. As YaleGlobal Online describes globalization is “propelled by the desire to improve one’s life and helped along by technology… this increasing integration of the world has enriched life but also created new problems.” As one can see, globalization is highly contested, but there are undeniable good results and bad results,…