06-25-1903 Marie Curie defends thesis
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering Chemistry Engineering Diversity History of Science and Technology Nuclear Engineering Physics |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Community - Blog |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Alice Agogino |
| Description: | Engineering Pathway's "Today in History" blog for June 25. Excerpt: Today in History - June 25, 1903 - Marie Curie defends her doctoral thesis, then gets Nobel Prize five months later. Did she just procrastinate? Or were thesis standards higher a century ago at the Sorbonne? I haven't seen a good explanation for the delay, other than she was busy discovering new elements. Earlier in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie made repeated separations of the various substances in pitchblende (photo on left) and used a Curie electrometer to identify two unidentified radioactive fractions that remained in pitchblende after uranium was removed. They discovered that the one containing mostly bismuth also contained a new element they named "polonium" in honor of the country of Marie's birth. The barium fraction contained another new element, which they named "radium" from the Latin word for ray. They were able to add two new elements in the Periodic Table. While the chemical properties of the two new elements were completely dissimilar, they both had strong radioactivity. Radium was later isolated as a pure metal in 1902, but the discovery was not published in the popular press until this day in 1903. Evidently, Marie Curie was so focused on her research that she had neglected to complete the writing of her thesis, which she finally got around to defending on June 25, 1903 titled: "Research on radioactive substances". |
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| Keywords: | Marie Curie radium Nobel Prize |
| Is Component of: |
"Today in History" Blog of the Engineering Pathway Digital Library |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
History of technology. |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | June 2008 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.k-grayengineeringeducation.com/blog/index.php/2012/06/ |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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