THE DISCOVERER OF RADIUM.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12485, 23 April 1906, Page 8

THE DISCOVERER OF RADIUM.

UNTIMELY END IN PARIS

United Press Association—By Electric Te-W graph—Copyright.

PARIS, April 20

Professor Pierre Curie, the discoverer of radium, while crossing a road in Pa-rie slipped heavily, and a dray passed over him end crushed him to death.

[Tho untimely death of M. Curio removes from the field of scientific activity one who, in conjunction with his gifted wife, has rendered inestimable services to the cause of scientific research. To M. and Mme. Curio, indeed, belonged tho distinction of having been the first to isolate thai wonderful mysterious substance radium, the properties of which have revolutionised many of t.ho physical theories held prior to its discovery. But fire or six years ago M. Curie was an ohscure professor of chemistry at a municipal school in Paris. A mild, meek, middle-aged man, he took an especial interest, in the Polish girl, Mademoiselle Sklodwwska, who oanie to learn ao the municipal working-class institute in which he taught, and perceiving that marvellous capacity to assimilate and the gift of scientific divination which she possessed, ho invited her to become his assistant and eventually his wife. She proved a great help to 'him in more senses than, one. "Madame Curie k utterly without social ambition," one writer observes. "She strikes one as a thoughtful, sterling and quietly determined person, untainted by vanity or bluestockingism. Her complexion is thai of a dingy blonde who has long known privations, and has often not been able to dine according to her appetite or warm herself at a good fire. Just think of the strong character tiat enabled her to say to M. Curie 'Do not hesitate on my account to spend that 5000 francs in the are you want. Sincere work like ours was never yet thrown away.' She fanned the eaored fire in him whenever she saw it dying out, and kept on hoping against the adverse circumstances that crowded on them." The starting point of the work which made the Curies famous was the discovery of the Rontgen rays, and tho study of their radiations by Rutherford and by Becquorel. Tho Curies examined nearly all the elements for similar emanations, and found that the compounds of uranium were radio-active, and further that whilst tnorium and uranium are radio-active, the activity of certain of the pitchblendes was greater than it should be if they only contained uranium and thorium. This observation was the starting point of the discovery of radrum and other radio-active substances. Tho writer already referred to, who interviewed M. Curio before he became famous, says "He evidently was not in the habit of being sought out as a celebrity, or of being noticed as a great discoverer. He took mo round, and must liavo kept mc about an hour. He told mc his wife had gone to Sevres, where she regularly lectured on chemistry at the Hyter Normal Scnool for Schoolmistresses, and he rook a guileless prido in relating what part sho had in the discovery of radium. It was she who struck that vein. She jumped to the conclusion, on being shown a morsel of uranium, that it contained another rarer metal or metals." The next step in their discoveries was the fact ascertained that tho property of radio-ac-tivity depended only on the amount of uranium present, but this very discovery soon showed that there must be a more active principle then uranium itself in uranium. Inis conclusion resulted, after further research, in the isolation of radium which was found to have an activity two million timies as intense as thnt of uranium. Thus was radium discovered. M. and Madame Curie shared in 1903 with M. Bccquerol the Nobel prize of 100,000 francs for scientific research.]