
The Discovery of Radium by Marie Curie - sohkamyung
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61622
======
acidburnNSA
The time this was discovered was an incredible time of discovery, largely due
to the new availability of high vacuum pumps and high voltage in glass. People
were messing with these cathode ray tubes all over, and they led to so much.

Roentgen found x-rays in 1895 in a high vacuum, high voltage glass tube. This
led to the discovery of the electron and quantum physics at the time (and
later, the double helical nature of DNA was found from xray diffraction).
Following that work, Becquerel discovered natural radiation. Curie and
Rutherford followed that up with nuclear physics, which eventually led to
atomic warfare, radiation therapy, mars rover power supplies, and nuclear
power stations.

Meanwhile, CRTs also gave way to vacuum tube electronics like radios,
amplified music, and large-scale telephone networks.

And of course the TV.

Man I love cathode ray tubes. Wrote a thing about them once:

[https://partofthething.com/thoughts/the-modern-era-passed-
th...](https://partofthething.com/thoughts/the-modern-era-passed-through-a-
cathode-ray-tube/)

------
mellosouls
Sidenote: first person to win the Nobel twice; only person to win in two
different scientific fields.

Extraordinary achievement - especially considering how difficult things must
have been for female scientists back then.

------
odiroot
*Maria Skłodowska-Curie.

Also the link is inaccessible in Germany.

~~~
sohkamyung
Apparently blocked due to a German court case in 2018 [1]. Did a notice like
the one in the article appear when you accessed the website?

[1] [https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/04/project-gutenberg-
blocks-a...](https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/04/project-gutenberg-blocks-
access-from-germany/)

------
dmix
> Then I thought that there should be in the minerals some unknown element
> having a much greater radioactivity than uranium or thorium. And I wanted to
> find and to separate that element, and I settled to that work with Professor
> Curie. We thought it would be done in several weeks or months, but it was
> not so. It took many years of hard work to finish that task.

Sounds like every software project I've worked on!

Edit: I love also the .txt formatting, wish more books had this option
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61622/61622-0.txt](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61622/61622-0.txt)

------
perl4ever
...just about a century ago, and only about 25 years later, the atomic bomb
was realized. It makes you wonder what 2045 will bring as you look around at
quantum computing and biotechnology.

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Malic
Not too long ago, I read that one can see her notebooks yourself! You can sign
up and be on a list to do so! If you visit Paris... And sign a waiver... And
wear some protective clothing...

Because her notebooks are still radioactive and will be for quite some time to
come.

[https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/27/marie-
curie/](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/27/marie-curie/)

(I still chuckle - nervously - whenever I am reminded about this fact!)

------
fg6hr
Here is the link to the Nobel prize:
[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/summary/](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/summary/)

The distribution of the prize is interesting: \- 1/2 went to Becquerel (who's
that?) \- 1/4 went to Pierre Curie \- 1/4 went to Marie Curie

~~~
alephnil
He was actually the person that discovered radioactivity. He did so when
studying phosphorescence, and discovered that uranium salts (that are
phosphorescent too), also exposed a photographic plate even when they not had
been exposed to light, and even through black paper. You can clearly argue
about the share of the price, and he was also clearly doing the discovery by
luck.

The Curies, and especially Marie Curie was the ones that sorted out the nature
of radioactivity and discovered two new elements in the process, but the
discovery of radioactivity itself was quite important, so that he received the
Nobel prize was not really undeserved.

------
6d6b73
Right there in the text: Author: Marie Sklodowska Curie

So why the are you people still changing her name to just Curie?

~~~
dntbnmpls
Us people are doing that to her name because us people generally use first and
last name when referring to individuals and ignore the middle name.

For example:

Melanie Trump

Elizabeth Warren

Steve Jobs

Bill Gates

...

~~~
afthonos
That’s not her middle name. It’s her maiden name.

