The Discovery of Isotopes (PDF)

Michael Thoennessen, since 1998 full professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, obtained his MS in Physics in 1985 from the University of Cologne, Germany, and his Ph.D. in 1988 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA. Michael then joined the Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research at ORNL, Oak Ridge, as a Research Associate. He currently is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and Associate Director for User Relations, at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

The author and co-author of more than 450 scholarly publications, as well as Supervisory Editor of the journal Nuclear Physics A, focuses his research on experimental nuclear physics.

He is involved in the Discovery of Nuclides Project, a literature search to document the discovery of all isotopes, started in 2007 and published in a series of papers in the journal Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables.
Among others he was awarded the William Elgin Wickenden Award of the American Society for Engineering Education in 1999, the GENCO (GSI Exotic Nuclei Community) Membership Award in 2009 and the Division of Nuclear Physics Mentoring Award of the American Physical Society in 2012. He has been a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 2005.

“Thoennessen (physics and astronomy, Michigan State Univ.) collected information on every isotope (or nuclide) ever discovered or created in a laboratory. … The book documents their history and additional details regarding their discovery or creation. The diagrams, pictures, color plates, and graphs are all very useful in understanding the work of innumerable physicists, chemists, and engineers over the course of many decades. … Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty; professionals.” (N. Sadanand, Choice, Vol. 54 (5), January, 2017)



“The book presents a nicely ordered description and related original references of the early days of the isotope research as part of the history of nuclear physics. … presents a carefully written piece of literature and deserves a place in the book shelf of a nuclear physicist. … offers a useful source of information for students and teachers, as well as for non-experts. It is highly recommended reading as support material for nuclear physics classes in high school and universities.” (Juha Äystö, Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 27 (1), 2017)