Plutonium, after Pluto, the planet beyond Neptune; discovered 1940. Plutonium was used, instead of uranium, in several of the first atomic bombs. In one of the codes of wartime physicists, plutonium was referred to as “copper”; copper itself had to be renamed “honest-to-God copper”.
From the Royal Soc. of Chemistry / Time-Life Books – Life Science Library – A Periodic Table of the Elements. © 1987 TIME-LIFE Books B.V.
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