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From the earlier known chemical properties of Actinium (89) up to Uranium (92), indicating a relation to the transition metals, it was generally assumed that the transuraniums would have similar qualities. During his Manhattan Project research in 1944, Glenn T. Seaborg experienced unexpected difficulty isolating Americium (95) and Curium (96). He began wondering if these elements more properly belonged to a different series than the transition metals, which would explain why the expected chemical properties of the new elements were different. In 1945, he went against the advice of colleagues and proposed the most significant change to Mendeleev's Periodic Table to have been accepted universally by the scientific community: the actinide series.

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17y ago

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