Marie Curie's Research Breakthroughs in the Discovery of Polonium and Radium (1897-1904)
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman - Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Chemistry History of Science and Technology Nuclear Engineering Physics |
| Learning Resource Type: | Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: | WWW |
| Author(s): | Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics AIP |
| Description: | Part of an exhibit by the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. Excerpt: "Making repeated separations of the various substances in the pitchblende, Marie and Pierre used the Curie electrometer to identify the most radioactive fractions. They thus discovered that two fractions, one containing mostly bismuth and the other containing mostly barium, were strongly radioactive. In July 1898 the Curies published their conclusion: the bismuth fraction contained a new element. Chemically it acted almost exactly like bismuth, but since it was radioactive, it had to be something new. They named it "polonium" in honor of the country of Marie's birth. A second publication, in December 1898, explained their discovery in the barium fraction of another new element, which they named "radium" from the Latin word for ray. The Curies were close to reaching one of the highest goals that a scientist of the time could hope to achieve--placing new elements in the Periodic Table. While the chemical properties of the two new elements were completely dissimilar, they both had strong radioactivity. TO CONVINCE THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY of the existence of polonium and radium, and to complete the identification and establish the nature of the new elements, Marie set out to isolate them from the bismuth and barium with which they were mixed. Since the Municipal School storeroom would be inadequate to the task, the Curies moved their lab to an abandoned shed across the school courtyard. The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly outfitted and ventilated. It was not weathertight. She succeeded in separating the radium from the barium only with tremendous difficulty -- which would become central in the romantic legend of her life. She had to treat very large quantities of pitchblende, a ton of which the Curies received as a donation from the Austrian government. Despite the industrial assistance the Curies received, it took Marie over three years to isolate one tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride. For reasons that would not be fully understood until the concept of radioactive decay was developed, Marie never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only 138 days." Image caption: This pitchblende sample was instrumental in the discovery of radium and polonium. |
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| Keywords: | Marie Curie, Madam Curie, discovery of radium, polonium, Nobel Prize |
| Is Component of |
Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: | Media-rich history of technology website. |
| Difficulty: | Medium |
| Interactivity Level: | Medium |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | 2008 |
| Platform/Format: | WWW |
| Cost: | Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.aip.org/history/curie/resbr2.htm |
| Metadata: | IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
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