Isotopic Adventures—Geological, Planetological, and Cosmic
Abstract
When asked to write a summary of my professional life, I had no notion of how \ndifficult it would be. There is the form and the substance, the remembrances and \nthe reality, the discipline and the hope, the frustration of not finding a way, and the \nsatisfaction of finding a trail. Of all of the experiences, the greatest one, the biggest \nturn-on, is the rare feeling that one has some understanding of nature. I have had the \nhonor and privilege of receiving the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy \nfrom the King of Sweden, but my greatest occasions of excitement came when I \nthought I had possibly understood something. The greatest satisfaction comes in \nfeeling that the work I have done or contributed to has some beauty. At the moment, \nI am finishing up a paper on groundwater transport in the Ojo Alamo aquifer, \nhaving just finished a paper with C.T. Lee and Frank Kyte on the chemistry and \ntransport of PGE in the oceans. Just weeks earlier, I returned from an astrophysics \nconference on “Low Z at low z and high z,” (low chemical elemental abundances \nat low and high cosmological red shifts) led by Y.-Z. Qian at the University of \nMinnesota. It has been said that the virtue of being “old” is that you can live in the \npast as well as the present. Thinking about the past is not my way, except to tell old \nstories over good wines at dinner with friends. However, the truth is that the particular \nproblem that I am working on at any instant is, to me, the most important thing \nin the world. Chasing some particular idea and some observations of nature make \nup the real present and govern my immediate future. In the chase, I met Devendra \nand Aruna Lal. He was fascinated with Indian puzzles and natural puzzles, particularly \nthose cosmic-ray induced. Our mutual interest in natural puzzles has been a \ncontinuous source of entertainment and mutual support. Friendly interaction and \ncritical comments on science and life and what might be true comes regularly from \nKarl Turekian (a Columbia product displaced to Yale). It has been my privilege \nto have had an exciting, productive career that continues to the present day. It is \nmy intent to continue the exploration and the chase. The reader is warned that this report is not chronological, as the actual science in different areas often occurred \nconcurrently.
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Radiopharmaceuticals offer non-invasive insights into molecular processes at cellular levels.
“These compounds, meticulously engineered through the fusion of biologically active molecules and radioisotopes, offer non-invasive insights into molecular processes at cellular levels [1].”
From Radiopharmaceuticals: navigating the frontier of precision medicine and therapeutic innovation (2024) · cites this paper as [1]
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- Authors
- Wasserburg, G. J.
- Affiliations
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wasserburg, G.J.
- ORCID
- Wasserburg, G.J.
- Venue
- Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2003-05
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-74
- ISSN
- 0084-6597 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-4495
- OpenAlex
- W2105862922
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › History of Science and Medicine
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › History and Developments in Astronomy
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Groundwater and Isotope Geochemistry
- Keywords
- isotopes, groundwater transport, platinum group elements, maritime transport, cosmological redshift, scientific careers
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