TLS, one page, 8.5 x 11, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory letterhead, April 4, 1990. Seaborg answers a question posed by William W. Stanhope of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In part: “Perhaps the most important breakthrough that led to the award to me of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was the realization that the heaviest elements—thorium, protactinium and uranium—and the first transuranium elements should be members of an actinide transition series. Thus, they would be placed below the Periodic Table in parallel with the rare earth (lanthanide) elements.” In fine condition, with intersecting mailing folds, one vertical fold passing through his name. A first-person account of the chemist’s thought process. RRAuction COA.
