James A. Harris - Contributions to Chemistry

James Andrew Harris is known for his co-discovery of elements 104 and 105 at Berkeley University. Rutherfordium, element 104, was detected in 1969. Hahnium, element 105, was later detected in 1970. Both elements were named after atomic pioneers.

While working in the new division and position, he worked hard for several years to bombard atoms in order to create new elements. They would first, make some materials that would be bombarded with carbon atoms. They would then purify and prepare these targeted materials so they would be just right. This material would then be bombarded with carbon atoms for hundreds of hours. With this technique there were two new elements discovered. The first one was element number 104, which was later to be named Rutherfordium in honor of Ernest Rutherford, in 1969. Although this was created, it was only detected for only a few seconds. The second element was element number 105, which was later named Hahnium in honor of George Hahn, in 1970.

There is however, a sort of controversy on the discovery of these elements. The Soviets claim to have discovered these element first back in 1964 (Element 104) and 1967 (Element 105) making it only a few years before the discovery at Berkeley University. This could be the possible reason why element 105 was renamed from Hahnium to Dubnium. Dubnium is named after Dubna, an are near Moscow where the Soviets supposedly discovered the element. There are however, periodic tables that still show Hahnium as element 105.