Jacob Akiba Marinsky

Jacob Akiba Marinsky (April 11, 1918, Buffalo, New York – September 1, 2005) was a chemist who was the co-discoverer of the element promethium.

Biography Marinsky was born in Buffalo, New York on April 11, 1918. He attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, beginning at age 16 and receiving a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1939.

During World War II he was employed as a chemist for the Manhattan Project, working for Clinton Laboratories (now Oak Ridge National Laboratory) from 1944 to 1946. Marinsky and Glendenin produced it both by extraction from fission products and by bombarding neodymium with neutrons. Upon the suggestion of Charles D. Coryell's wife Grace Coryell, the team named the new element for the mythical god Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and was punished for the act by Zeus.

Marinsky was among the Manhattan Project scientists who in 1945 signed a petition against using an atomic bomb on Japan. His research was concerned with nuclear inorganic chemistry, physicochemical studies of ion exchange, and polyelectrolyte and electrolyte systems. During the early 1960s Marinsky was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He worked again for SUNY at Buffalo during the late 1960s; when during that time the university required faculty to sign an oath of loyalty to the United States, Marinsky refused, terming it a violation of civil liberties; He retired in 1988, becoming a professor emeritus.

In 1990, he received the Clifford Furnas Memorial Award of the State University of New York at Buffalo, awarded to graduates whose scientific accomplishments brought prestige to the university.

Marinsky died on September 1, 2005, from multiple myeloma. He was buried in Pine Hill Cemetery in Buffalo. He was survived by his wife, the former Ruth Slick, to whom he was married for 63 years. They were the parents of four daughters.