Marie Curie Read Online Free PDF Page B

when an element is heated to a gaseous state and the light it emits is studied through a prism, it produces unique lines along the spectrum of colors. The pattern of spectral lines supplies a sort of signature for that element. Already, eight new elements (including helium) had been identified through their unique spectral lines.
    The Curies called in Eugène demarcay, a French spectroscopy specialist, to help. Alas, no unique spectral lines appeared when their substance was tested. Whatever they had could not be labeled a new element . . . not yet.
    As usual, Marie was undeterred. It was her hunch that the substance just needed more purification. After more chemical investigation, on July 13, 1898, she had what she wanted. A new element. She felt secure enough to give it a name—“polonium,” with the abbreviation “Po.” Pierre wrote it down in their notebook. Patriotic Pole Marie came up with the name to honor her native land.
    Five days later, at the French Academy, Henri Becquerel himself read a report by the Curies, called “On a New Radio-Active Substance Contained in Pitchblende.” (Pierre couldn’t read it because he wasn’t a member, either.) It announced the Curies’ discovery of polonium, a substance well over four hundred times as radioactive as uranium—a new element. It was also the first use of “radioactive” in print. She wrote that it was “necessary at this point to find a new term to define this new property of matter.” She had discovered a new element in a completely new way—by its rays.
    The scientific establishment understood it was not dealing with an amateur. Marie was awarded a prize, money, and a statement that conceded, “The research of Madame Curie deserves the encouragement of the Academy.”
    At long last, the Curies took a three-month summer vacation to get out of the hot city. Talk and planning did not cease, especially a hunt for a supplier of enormous amounts of pitchblende.
    Even after the polonium was isolated, pitchblende still gave off an incredible amount of radiation. did this mean there was yet another new element waiting to be discovered? It certainly seemed that way. After being back at work for six weeks of experiments, the Curies discovered a substance nine hundred times as radioactive as pure uranium.
    And it produced new and unique spectral lines.
    Six days later, on december 20, 1898, she sent off a new paper to the Academy announcing the discovery of another new element. In it she concluded, “The various reasons we have just enumerated lead us to believe that the new radioactive substance contains a new element which we propose to give the name of RADIUM.” The name came from “radius,” the Latin for ray , used for the element’s intense radioactivity. discovering the two elements had taken one year. Marie couldn’t have done it without Pierre’s help. They were inseparable. “We really have the same way of seeing everything” was one of his most frequent comments. It wasn’t one of those marriages where one spouse’s obsessions made the other one feel neglected or envious—they shared exactly the same obsessions to an equal extent. Marie wrote to Bronia (who was in the process of founding a state-of-the-art treatment center for tuberculosis patients back in Poland): Pierre is “the best husband one could dream of. . . . He is a true gift of heaven, and the more we live together the more we love each other.”
    The lab was a place of beauty, love—and serious accomplishment. By age thirty-one, Marie had discovered two new elements through the rays they emitted and coined the word that described those rays. One way in which she did differ significantly from Pierre was her drive to succeed. He was all but indifferent to competition or taking credit. She was just the opposite—she wanted her gold medals.
    Almost from the beginning, she started calling radioactivity an atomic property. She drew the conclusion that the ability to radiate had to