Einsteinium was discovered as a component of the debris of the first hydrogen bomb explosion in 1952 , and named after Albert Einstein . Its most common isotope einsteinium-253 ( half-life 20.47 days ) is produced artificially from decay of californium-253 in a few dedicated high-power nuclear reactors with a total yield on the order of one milligram per year . The reactor synthesis is followed by a complex process of separating einsteinium-253 from other actinides and products of their decay . Other isotopes are synthesized in various laboratories , but in much smaller amounts , by bombarding heavy actinide elements with light ions . Owing to the small amounts of produced einsteinium and the short half-life of its most easily produced isotope , there are currently almost no practical applications for it outside basic scientific research . In particular , einsteinium was used to synthesize , for the first time , 17 atoms of the new element mendelevium in 1955
first hydrogen bomb
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Einsteinium