Amnon Marinov (1930 – 2011) was an Israeli physicist. He undertook research into nuclear structures, nuclear reactions, superheavy elements and long-lived nuclear isomers.

Claimed discovery of unbibium

On April 24, 2008, a group led by Marinov at

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

claimed to have found single atoms of unbibium-292 in natural thorium deposits at an abundance of 10⁻¹¹ to 10⁻¹² relative to thorium. This was the first time in sixty-nine years that a new element had been claimed to be discovered in nature, after Marguerite Perey's 1939 discovery of

francium Francium is a chemical element with the symbol Fr and atomic number 87. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable isotope, francium-223 (originally called actinium K after the natural decay chain it appears in), has a half-life of only 22&nb ...

. The claim of Marinov ''et al.'' was criticized by a part of the scientific community, and Marinov said he submitted the article to the journals '' Nature'' and '' Nature Physics'' but both turned it down without sending it for peer review. The unbibium-292 atoms were claimed to be superdeformed or hyperdeformed nuclear isomers, with a half-life of at least 10⁸ years. A criticism of the technique, previously used in purportedly identifying lighter thorium isotopes by

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...

, was published in '' Physical Review C'' in 2008. A rebuttal by the Marinov group was published in ''Physical Review C'' after the published comment. A repeat of the thorium experiment using the superior method of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) failed to confirm the results, despite a 100-fold better sensitivity. This result throws considerable doubt on the results of the Marinov collaboration with regards to their claims of long-lived isotopes of thorium, roentgenium and unbibium. It is still possible that traces of unbibium might exist in some thorium samples, though given current understanding of superheavy elements, this is very unlikely.

Family

Amnon Marinov lived in Jerusalem, Israel with his wife Rachel; they have four children and six grandchildren. His father, Haim Marinov (1904–2001), was the deputy mayor of Jerusalem from 1964 until 1973. His father-in-law, Ya'akov Maimon (1902–1977), was the inventor of Hebrew

stenography Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

and received the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...

in 1976 for his lifelong voluntary work teaching Hebrew to new immigrants all over the country. Amnon Marinov died on December 7, 2011.

Notes

References

External links

Marinov's site, including a full list of his publications

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marinov, Amnon 1930 births 2011 deaths Israeli nuclear physicists Jewish physicists Thorium People from Jerusalem Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israeli Jews Israeli people of Russian-Jewish descent