Early History of Carbon-14

Abstract

When, how, and why was carbon-14 discovered ? As T. S. Kuhn has remarked [¹], discovery is seldom a single event that can be attributed wholly to a particular individual, time, or place. He notes that some discoveries, such as those of the neutrino, radio waves, and missing isotopes or elements, are predictable and present few problems as far as establishment of priority is concerned. Others, such as the discoveries of oxygen, x rays, and the electron, are unpredictable. These put the historian in a “bind” when he tries to decide when, how, where, and by whom the discovery was made. Much more rarely does he have a basis for an answer to the question “Why?”

Dr. Kamen has been an active participant in the Advances in Tracer Methodology Symposia. He presented a paper at the Third Symposium and was Chairman of the Fourth and Seventh Symposia. His fascinating account of the discovery of carbon-14 is of interest to everyone working with isotopes. This article was adapted from a paper which he presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Los Angeles in April 1963, when he received the Society’s 1963 Award for Nuclear Applications in Chemistry, and is reprinted with permission, having appeared in J. Chem. Ed., May 1963, and in Science 140:584 (1963). Copyright 1963 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.