obituaries

the new york times take on my grandfather's life. . . . . . a bit dry, not as interesting or three-dimensional as the one in the buffalo news, which paid more attention to personal traits and ethics, which i find more interesting than the intricacies of ion exchange. but so be it. . .

Jacob Marinsky, 87, Dies; Isolated Promethium Ions

By JEREMY PEARCE

Published: September 8, 2005

Jacob A. Marinsky, a chemist who helped discover promethium, No. 61 in the periodic table and one of several elements isolated during work on the Manhattan Project, died Sept. 1 at his home in Buffalo, where he taught at the State University of New York. He was 87. The cause was multiple myeloma, his family said.


An associate chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee from 1944 to 1946, Dr. Marinsky and colleagues isolated promethium, a radioactive element, in the form of metal salts, the byproduct of atomic research in uranium fission. Also credited with the discovery were Lawrence E. Glendenin and Charles D. Coryell of Oak Ridge.

In a commercial application, promethium was used to produce luminous materials like watch dials, leading the scientists to name the element for Prometheus, the figure in Greek mythology who brought fire to mankind.

Harry F. King, a professor of chemistry at SUNY, said Dr. Marinsky and his colleagues washed a solution of metal salts through a column of resins and succeeded in isolating promethium ions. The process, called ion exchange, remained a primary interest of Dr. Marinsky's throughout his career. The American Chemical Society acknowledged the result in 1949, recognizing the finding for the periodic table.

A synthetic and relatively unstable material, promethium was introduced to the international scientific establishment after World War II, along with plutonium, neptunium, technetium and others. In part because it decays rapidly, promethium "was an astounding thing to discover in the middle of the periodic table, so late in the history of science," Dr. King said.

Jacob Akiba Marinsky was born in Buffalo. He graduated from the University of Buffalo and earned his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. Dr. Marinsky worked in industrial research before returning to Buffalo, where he was appointed as a professor of chemistry in 1957. He became a professor emeritus in 1988.

Dr. Marinsky is survived by his wife of 63 years, the former Ruth Slick; four daughters, Deborah Marinsky of Princeton, N.J.; Elyse Friedman of Newton Center, Mass.; Jane Marinsky of Buffalo, and Susan Cramer of Blacksburg, Va.; 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.

my grandfather

as many of you already know, my grandfather passed away yesterday afternoon, september 1, 2005, after battling bone marrow cancer and alztheimer's. he was 86 years old. though i knew it was coming, and it was for the best, i'm incredibly sad, more than i thought i would be even, that he's no longer occupies the same space as i do, and that he's no longer present, palpably and tangibly. and i miss him. i guess that i missed him the last time i saw him, in march, when he had very little grasp of the world around him -- of his senses, his desires, his family. he was a body, and he looked like my grandfather -- in rare moments even acted like him -- but he was for the most part gone already. his death has just forced me to finally confront this -- that people you love, and who have been there your entire life, go somewhere else. or don't. but that they disappear in the form in which you know them.

well, i don't want to make this too long, cheesy, trite, or sentimental. just wanted to pay a little tribute to my grandfather. an amazing, sweet, sensitive, and quiet man.
he was shy and awkward, a nerdy-looking jew with thick, black glasses. when he met my grandmother, i don't think he'd ever had a girlfriend. my grandmother's father was a little bit taken aback at this near-mute geeky guy taking out his beautiful and vivacious daughter. on their first date, he drove her to a restaurant at niagara falls and somehow, by the second date, they were engaged. they had four girls together--elyse, deborah, susan, and jane--and rarely did i see them bicker. my grandfather discovered an element, promethium, when in his late 1920s. he worked on the manhattan project in oak ridge, tennessee, and for a year could not tell my grandmother what he did when he left home everyday. he was a renowned professor at the University of Buffalo. okay, he was a terrible speaker, he mumbled and stuttered, had no charisma, and his students probably found him mind-numbingly dull. but he was brilliant. as a grandfather, i remember him mostly for singing in a n exaggerated frank sinatra voice to make us laugh, of him sitting in his rocking chair consuming trashy mystery and after trashy mystery, and getting wildly impassioned (for him) about the success of the buffalo bills that year. he was pretty devastated after that 4-year super bowl debacle!

anyway, that's it. i won't go on too long. . . .
this is a cute little link to his biography, complete with vintage photo of him completely nerded out. and a recent photo of him last thanksgiving, that's really hilarious
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http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev25-34/chapter2sb6.htm