Two Nobel Prizes Not Good Enough for the Academie Des Sciences

TWO NOBEL PRIZES NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES  

Stimulated by Rontgen s discovery of x-rays, Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) postulated a relationship between x-rays and fluorescence. He placed a variety of fluorescent crystalline samples in contact with photographic plates that were 

However, another chemical fraction that contained barium and other alkaline earth salts exhibited intense radioactivity. When Madame Curie had purified this fraction to a point where the specific radioactivity was 60 times that of uranium, a new spectral line was detected in the fraction. As sensitive as the spectroscope (developed by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kir-choff around 1860) was in its detection of emitted light, the electrometer was even more sensitive to the detection of radioactivity. Further fractionation to a level of 900 times the specific radioactivity was accompanied by a correspon- 

PHYSICO-CHIMIE. — Sur une mbstance nouvelk radio-aclivc, conlenuc dana ia peckblende ( ). Note de M. P, CtritiB et de M S. Cohie, presentee par M. Becquerel. 

FIGURE 311. First page of Pierre and Marie Curie s paper announcing the discovery of polonium in pitchblende and inventing the word radioactive (Comptes Rendus, 127 175, 1898). 

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