And, on this day, the day after Christmas, a remarkable human event, an event that promised hope and destruction--and eventually killed one of the discoverers.
On this day in 1898, chemists discovered a substance 900 times more radioactive than uranium. That project was led by Marie Curie.
Curie was a medical student at the Sorbonne in Paris when she decided to study the new field of radiation for her thesis.
In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered powerful "Röntgen rays," which would eventually be dubbed X-rays. The following year, Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered that much weaker rays emitted by uranium salts would fog up photographic plates just like light rays did — even in the absence of light.
Key to Marie Curie's research was the piezoelectric quartz electrometer. The device, invented by her brother-in-law, Jacques Curie, measured the weak electrical currents produced by radioactivity.
"Instead of making these bodies act upon photographic plates, I preferred to determine the intensity of their radiation by measuring the conductivity of the air exposed to the action of the rays," Curie wrote in a 1904 article.
Working with her husband, Pierre, and Gustave Bémont, the head of chemistry at the Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry of the City of Paris, they began to study pitchblende, a black mineral rich in uranium often found in deposits alongside silver.
"How could an ore, containing many substances which I had proved inactive, be more active than the active substances of which it was formed? The answer came to me immediately: The ore must contain a substance more radioactive than uranium and thorium, and this substance must necessarily be a chemical element as yet unknown," Marie Curie wrote.
The trio decided to try to separate pitchblende, which can be composed of up to 30 minerals, into its constituent parts to identify the radioactive substance. They used the light spectra of different substances to try to isolate and identify the ingredients.
They pinpointed one mineral that was around 60 times more "radio-active" than uranium, which they named polonium. And on Dec. 21, they found another — called radium — that was an unprecedented 900 times more radioactive than uranium. They described both new substances during a talk at the French Academy of Sciences on Dec. 26.
Their research on radiation earned the Curies and Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. (Marie was originally going to be passed over, but she received the prize only after her husband, Pierre, insisted the committee credit her work.) Marie would earn another Nobel Prize in 1911, this time in chemistry, for her work on radium.
Radium caused frequent radiation sickness and burns in both Curies. Marie's radiation exposure likely killed her; she died in 1934 at age 66 due to aplastic anemia, a type of leukemia that can be caused by radiation damage to bone marrow.--from Tia Ghose
In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered powerful "Röntgen rays," which would eventually be dubbed X-rays. The following year, Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered that much weaker rays emitted by uranium salts would fog up photographic plates just like light rays did — even in the absence of light.
Key to Marie Curie's research was the piezoelectric quartz electrometer. The device, invented by her brother-in-law, Jacques Curie, measured the weak electrical currents produced by radioactivity.
"Instead of making these bodies act upon photographic plates, I preferred to determine the intensity of their radiation by measuring the conductivity of the air exposed to the action of the rays," Curie wrote in a 1904 article.
Working with her husband, Pierre, and Gustave Bémont, the head of chemistry at the Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry of the City of Paris, they began to study pitchblende, a black mineral rich in uranium often found in deposits alongside silver.
"How could an ore, containing many substances which I had proved inactive, be more active than the active substances of which it was formed? The answer came to me immediately: The ore must contain a substance more radioactive than uranium and thorium, and this substance must necessarily be a chemical element as yet unknown," Marie Curie wrote.
The trio decided to try to separate pitchblende, which can be composed of up to 30 minerals, into its constituent parts to identify the radioactive substance. They used the light spectra of different substances to try to isolate and identify the ingredients.
They pinpointed one mineral that was around 60 times more "radio-active" than uranium, which they named polonium. And on Dec. 21, they found another — called radium — that was an unprecedented 900 times more radioactive than uranium. They described both new substances during a talk at the French Academy of Sciences on Dec. 26.
Their research on radiation earned the Curies and Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. (Marie was originally going to be passed over, but she received the prize only after her husband, Pierre, insisted the committee credit her work.) Marie would earn another Nobel Prize in 1911, this time in chemistry, for her work on radium.
Radium caused frequent radiation sickness and burns in both Curies. Marie's radiation exposure likely killed her; she died in 1934 at age 66 due to aplastic anemia, a type of leukemia that can be caused by radiation damage to bone marrow.--from Tia Ghose
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