This review is completed with details of the re-interment of the bodies of Pierre and Marie on 20 April 1995 in The Panthéon, Paris. Wherever possible I have included appropriate quotations in Marie Curie's own words and each section is related in some way to the life and work of Maria or Pierre. Marie Curie's life in Poland prior to her 1891 departure for Paris is included in this review as are other aspects of her life and work such as her work in World War I with radiological ambulances (known as "Little Curies") on the battlefields of France and Belgium, early experiments with radium and the founding of the Institut du Radium in Paris and of the Radium Institute in Warsaw. This is particularly relevant as Marie Curie was in 1897 a research student in Becquerel's laboratory. This followed the earlier discovery in November 1895 of X-rays by Röntgen, which has already been reviewed in the British Journal of Radiology and the discovery in March 1896, by Becquerel, of the phenomenon of radioactivity, which introduces this review. But polonium and radium were differentįrom the known elements in one big wayeach was strongly radioactive.This review celebrates the events of 100 years ago to the month of publication of this December 1998 issue of the British Journal of Radiology, when radium was discovered by the Curies. The substance they named poloniumīehaved chemically about the same as an element that was already known,īismuth, and the substance they named radium had about the That is, as you see, a theory of transformation of atoms which are not stable, as was believed before, but may undergo spontaneous changes. Not one but two new radioactive elements. Marie Curie in 1921 And in that way, it has been proved that the radioactive elements are constantly disintegrating and that they produce at the end ordinary elements, principally helium and lead. Then they would make more separations, again and again, tracking down the unknown element by its radioactivity. The trick they invented was to find which of the separated parts was most radioactive, using the Curie electrometer to make precise measurements. After the materials were separated into different types of compounds, the Curies used a new method of chemical analysis. ![]() Although due to political instability, education prospects in Poland were not accessible to the female gender. Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland, 1867, growing up in an environment that encouraged the seeking of knowledge and that its importance was not to be underestimated. For example, a particular element might dissolve in an acid, which they could pour off, leaving other elements behind in a sludge at the bottom of the pot. Marie Curie And The Importance Of Her Discovery Of Radium. He Curies used standard chemical procedures to separate the different substances in pitchblende. Pierre, excited by his wifes idea, joined her search. She was convinced that a careful analysis of pitchblende would uncover a new radioactive element. For this work, Marie was awarded the Nobel. She found that thorium compounds also gave off ∻ecquerel rays.Īrie discovered that the mineral pitchblende was more radioactive than could be accounted for by the uranium or thorium it contained. After graduating from university, she started doing research into radioactivity. Trying to see what was so special about uranium, she tested minerals containing other elements. ![]() ![]() As she measured the rays from different uranium compounds, she discovered that the more uranium atoms in a substance, the more intense the rays the substance gave off. Great care was needed to get reliable numbers. Marie used this ∼urie electrometer to make exact measurements of the tiny electrical changes that uranium rays caused as they passed through air. Marie Curie was lucky to have at hand just the right kind of instrumenta very sensitive and precise deviceinvented about 15 years earlier by Pierre Curie and his brother, Jacques. When uranium rays passed through the air near an electrical measuring instrument, he found, the instrument detected a difference. O study the rays, Marie Curie used a property that Becquerel had discovered.
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