MADAME CURIE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1934, Page 7

MADAME CURIE

WHAT DID SHE DO ?

BENEFACTRESS OF MANKIND

STOEY OF EADIUM

Most people know the part Mme. Marie Curio played in the discovery of radium, but probably not every one knows what a landmark in the history of physical science that discovery marked, remarks a writer in "John o' London's weekly." It marked the beginning of a new scientific epoch. The momentous discovery of radio-activity gave rise..'to one of the most revolutionary achievements in tho whole history of science. That aehivement is in fact tho great glory of modern science. As my morning paper puts it, "tho fundamental theories of presentday physics aro based upon it, and without it wo should not posess the revolutionary and paradoxical conceptions of the universe with -.which Einstein, Eddingtou, arid Jeans have dazzled the modern mind." It would not • be true to say that Mme. Curie, is the discoverer of radioactivity. That honour belongs to Henri Becquerel,' who discovered the radioactive : properties of the mineral uranium. That is to say, he observed that uranium emitted certain rays and that they had remarkable properties, penetrating opaque substances that ordinary light could not do. They were named "Becquerel rays," but no one know then what the nature of these rays was; it was soon established, however,.by Professor -(no,w. Lord), Buther--fprd, and Professor. J., J. Thomson that our notions of .indivisible changeless atoms must be abandoned, for these emanations were found to be electrical particles and as such.; constituents of tho atom. That meant, therefore, the death of the old atom. That was a beginning. These two. eminent physicists :can -tell us a great deal more llOW.;L ~;: , ' • . ■ , At this point in time (1900) we; hear of Mine. Curie. She had been born at Warsaw, where her father was a professor of chemistry, and as a little girl Marie helped her father as a "washerup"- in his laboratory. She went, to study in Paris. "At the age of twentyfour she arrived in Paris, alone, without friends and with very little money. She rented a small room in a garret—the best she could afford—and went on with her studies. She began to dream of a career as a scientist. She went to the Sorbonne. It meant washing bottles and taking care of the furnace to help pay the fees, but she did not care. Faraday had done the same.'' In Paris Marie met a young scientist named Pierre Curie. They were married in 1895. With a brilliant professor as husband and collaborator her enthusiasm for science was redoubled. - In the following year Henri Becquerel made the discovery we have mentioned. Then the two Curies began.'to make experiments, and Madame had great experimental skill. ; They investigated tho strange and remarkable property of certain ■ minerals • spontaneously emitting penetrating types" of radiation. What did it mean? To make a long story short, they confirmed that radio-activity was an atomic property;" the full significance of that was not realised until some years later. They set out to se.e if thoy could find another substance that was more active in emitting rays than uranium. They wanted to find put ifthe rays came'from uranium itself or from something' associatea-, with it. They; began to analyse quantities of minerals. > They found a : certain: kind, of pitchblende.which wa* very active; they analysed tons of-it, concentrating always on the ' radiant element in it. After a time, as they laboriously and successively worked out the non-radiant matter, the stuff began to glow. From eight tons of pitchblende they extracted about half a teaspoonful of something that wa!s a million times more radiant that uranium. They called this new element Radium.

. THE "BECQUEREL BURN." After infinite trouble and experiment the method of separating,, or isolating, radium from radio-active substances was worked out by Mme. Curie, and it was a great feat. Nowadays everyone knows about the extensive use and curative properties of radium in hospitals for • the treatment of certain malignant diseases.--For that alone Mine. Curie has proved a benefactress to all mankind; "The application of radium to the treatment of disease came about in a curious way. One' day Mme. Curie presented -M. Henri Becquerel with a small tube containing a few grains of the precious new clement. He put it .in his waistcoat pocket, and went about his affairs of tho day. That night when he went to bed he found on his skin, just underneath' where the tube of radium had lain, a tiny sore. This, the famous 'Becquerel burn,' led to the discovery of tho peculiar power of radium on living tissue." All that is but one chapter in the story. The discovery of the radioactivity of certain substances, and inturn the isolation of radium, led to the most sensational developments of modern physics;" it resulted in an entire change of men's views about the constitution of all matter, and the nature of the physical universe. It was' found . that radio-active substances like.uranium, radium, etc., were elements that were spontaneously disintegrating, slowly transforming themselves from one into, the other, a natural transmutation of matter. It was recognised that three distinct and different rays were liberated from theso metals, and they were named by (now). Lord Rutherford after- the first three letters of the Greek alphabet, the Alpha, the Beta, and Gamma rays. The "beta rays," as they were at first called, havo proved to bo one of the most interesting discoveries ever made in tho whole history of science. They were later christened "electrons," for they proved to be electrical particles or waves/Only when tho electron was isolated from the atom (and that can bo done now in the laboratory) was it recognised for tho first time as a separate entity. That was the doom of the conception of the atom as an indivisible, unchanging, indestructible, solid atom of matter. "We know now that the old notion of the atom was quite wrong; every atom of matter whatever.kind is composed of particles of electricity. All atoms, all matter, therefore, is nothing but a manifestation of electricity. This is now common knowledge. ' IDEAS REVOLUTIONISED. "Wo can truthfully say that as discovery has succeeded discovery in recent years the net result has been a revolution in our ideas of tho universe: further, it has marked the beginning of a new phase of J.uman thought. If the universe has become • more mysterious than ever, it has also become of more intriguing interest to tho scientist, and to the ordinary man who follows the developments of physical science. The Quantum Theory, which all these discoveries led up to, is the most exciting and absorbing problem in the world of science at the present moment. As a scientific writer remarked recently, modern science seems 1 to be, on . the .verge of . Some great revelation of which wo have obtained, hitherto, only the most' perplexing glimpses. " , The beginning of all this was duo in

great measure to Mine. Curie's famous discovery of the separation of radium. And Lord Kutherford, who was in close contact with her, has paid her a warm tribute. For one thing, her discovery provided scientific men with a powerful .source of radiation for investigating the nature of radio-activity, as well as the structure of atoms in general.