Mendelevium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Md and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macroscopic quantities by neutron bombardment of lighter elements. It is the third-to-last actinide and the ninth transuranic element. It can only be produced in particle accelerators by bombarding lighter elements with charged particles. Seventeen isotopes are known; the most stable is 258Md with half-life 51.59 days; however, the shorter-lived 256Md is most commonly used in chemistry because it can be produced on a larger scale.
The 60-inch cyclotron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, in August 1939