Curie, Pierre and Marie

In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated two new radioactive elements, which they named radium and polonium. To obtain a few milligrams of these elements, they started with several tons of pitchblende ore and carried out a long series of tedious separations. Their work was done in a poorly equipped, unheated shed where the temperature reached 6°C (43°F) in winter. Four years later, in 1902, Marie determined the atomic mass of radium to within 0.5%, working with a tiny sample. 

Marie and Pierre Curie with daughter Irene, at their home near Paris... 

Chemists were not able to use their methods to determine the structure of the atom. The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel and the work of Marie and Pierre Curie showed, however, that heavy elements were not stable. The earlier postulate of their indivisibility could no longer be maintained. In 1906 Ernest Rutherford made the next horrorif-ic revelation his scattering experiments showed that the atom was almost empty. A tiny nuclear mass was circled by electrons at a large distance. For comparison, if the nucleus were the size of a cherry pit and were placed in the center of a football field, the electrons would be circulating in the back rows of the stadium. If the nucleus were the size of a football, the first electrons would be circling it at a distance of one kilometer. Between them would be absolute emptiness. 

The laboratory notes of Marie and Pierre Curie detailing their discovery of radium still emit such strong radiation that they have to be stored behind lead shields. 

Perhaps Perrin s continuing commitment is explained by the fact that his radiation hypothesis was an update of Marie and Pierre Curie s original explanation of radioactivity, that the apparently spontaneous emission of radiations and charged particles from molecules is activated by immanent radiations. The Curies supposed that radiations in the atmosphere or in the ether disturb the stability of the naturally radioactive elements. This hypothesis, like the radiation hypothesis of chemical activation, eventually succumbed to an explanation using electron configurations, adumbrated by the new quantum interpretation of matter and energy. 

Radium (Ra, [Rn]7.v2), name, and symbol, after Latin radius (ray). Discovered (1898) by Marie and Pierre Curie. 

Curium (Cm, [Rxi 5f16dxls2), named after the scientists Marie and Pierre Curie. Discovered (1944) by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso. Silvery white metal. 

In the last four years of the nineteenth century, scientists in France— notably Henri Becquerel and Marie and Pierre Curie—discovered that certain elements are radioactive. That is, their atoms naturally emit positively charged particles (alpha particles), negatively charged particles (beta particles), and energy (gamma radiation). 

Radium Ra 1898 (Paris, France) Marie Curie (Polish) and Pierre Curie (French) 81... 

Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 for pioneering investigations of radioactivity. The Curies needed 4 years to isolate 100 mg of RaCI2 from several tons of ore. Marie received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911 for her isolation of metallic radium. Linus Pauling, John Bardeen, and Frederick Sanger are the only others who received two Nobel Prizes. 

Bccqucrcl invented a phosphoroscopc to study phosphorescence, He is most famous foi his discovery of natuial laclioactivity, a pi op city of uranium, in 1896. His discovery lead eventually to the atomic and nuclear age and the research work of Mane and Pierre Curie. Becquerel shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 with Marie and Pierre Cune for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity". 

Radium Radium, the heaviest of the group 2A elements, occurs with uranium and was isolated as its chloride salt from the mineral pitchblende by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. Radium is highly radioactive, and no more than a few kilograms of the pure metal have ever been produced. Though used for many years as a radiation source for cancer radiotherapy, better sources are now available, and there are no longer any commercial uses for radium. 

Years of working with radioactive elements in the lab left Marie and Pierre Curie very sick as well. In 1934, Marie Curie died of a blood disease caused by exposure to radiation. When scientists examined her lab notebooks many decades later, they uncovered her glowing and toxic fingerprints everywhere. 

There are many similarities to the case of Marie and Pierre Curie, and their experience with the manufacturing of radium, to draw from the successful discovery of rhenium the emphasis on the analytical enrichment procedure, the determination to produce weighable samples, the art of taking patents and mastering the production of the new element and, last but not least, the writing of a monograph on... 

Marie and Pierre complained. These are days when we scarcely have time to breathe, and to think that we dreamed of living in a world quite removed from human beings They wanted to be left alone, but it was of no avail. Letters, invitations, telegrams, visitors bothered and distracted them. The world clamored for the Curies. They must come out of their laboratory for a few hours at least. Kelvin, England s greatest scientist, personally invited them to come to London to receive the Davy Medal of the Royal Society. 

Before their Nobel Prize-winning work on radium, Marie and Pierre studied alchemy. (They were said to have used pitchblende as their prima materia.) After Pierre s death, Marie was approached by a mysterious cabal. They advised her to desist in her alchemical studies, a secret which, if it got out, would badly tarnish Curie s reputation at a time when she was rapidly becoming a woman of some political importance and a French national heroine. 

Polonium was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie in their search for the sources of radioactivity in pitchblende. Polonium has 27 isotopes and is highly toxic and very radioactive. It has been suggested that the isotope 210Po, a natural contaminant of tobacco and an a-particle producer (see Section 21.1), might be at least partly responsible for the incidence of cancer in smokers. 

Curium was named in analogy to the element gadolinium (having the same number of f electrons) in memory of research scientists - in this case in honour of Marie and Pierre Curie. 

Curium was named after Polish-French physicists Marie and Pierre Curie, who conducted research on radioactive elements. 

French physicists Marie and Pierre Curie discover polonium and radium. 

About 30 years after the discovery of the electron, Irene Joliot-Curie (the daughter of the famous scientists Marie and Pierre Curie) discovered that when alpha particles hit a sample of beryllium, a beam that could go through almost anything was produced. 

Synthesized in 1944 by G. T. Seaborg, R.A. James, and A. Ghiorso at the University of California at Berkeley named in honor of Marie and Pierre Curie... 

Polonium is the most metallic member of group 6A. But it is not a typical metal. It is rare, radioactive, and extremely toxic. Polonium is important historically because it was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898 and named for Marie s nabve land, Poland. Selenium and tellurium are metalloids oxygen and sulfur are nonmetals. There are some trends to note in group 6A. With six valence electrons, the elements act mainly as nonmetals. They tend to gain two electrons to form ions with a 2— charge they also can share two electrons to achieve a stable electron configuration. 

The work of Marie and Pierre Curie was extremely important in establishing the origin of radioactivity and the field of nuclear chemistry. In 1898, the Curies identified two new elements, polonium and radium, on the basis of their radioactivity. Henri Becquerel and the Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. Marie Curie also received the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work with polonium and radium. Figure 25-2 shows the Curies at work in their laboratory. 

The name comes from the Latin radius, meaning ray. It was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898 when they were studying uranium and other radioactive materials found in pitchblende. There is about 1 g of radium in 7 tons of pitchblende, but it is 3xl05 times more radioactive than uranium. It was isolated as a metallic element in 1911 by Marie Curie and Andre-Louis Debieme (1874-1949). Radium exists in small quantities associated with uranium ores. Radium is phosphorescent, so it has been used to make luminous paint, especially for watch dials, but, because it is highly radioactive, most uses are related to nuclear medicine or the energy industry. Radon gas is produced from radium and is a harmful by-product. 

---