DS chapter 6 summary

Chemists were long baffled by seemingly random breaks in the rules that governed where elements fell on the periodic table until Henry Moseley, the son of Charles Darwin, used physics to create rules for the relationship between weight, atoms, and electrons. Although it wasn't until James Chadwick discovered neutrons did scientists truly begin to understand the anatomy of the atom and different isotopes. After Moseley's discovery, there was a mad rush to discover the rest of the missing elements on the table, but this soon died down in the wake of World War II. During this era scientists, specifically those in the Manhattan Project, developed a new method of science which essentially used random calculation to simulate tests out of necessity -  plutonium and uranium were so difficult to extract and dangerous to use that they couldn't do extensive testing on them before building the atomic bombs. Stanislaw Ulam, a Polish scientist that also worked on the project developed what he dubber "Monte Carlo" science that relied on calculation in place of physical experiments to uncover data. The complete destruction of the Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific Ocean served as testimony to the powerful results of this Monte Carlo method. Leo Szilard, another veteran of the Manhattan Project discovered/designed a bomb that utilized the instability of Cobalt-60 to create a doomsday, radioactive result that would destroy its target for more than a generation. He hoped that it would never be built and, as far as the world knows, it never has been.