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Updated: June 20, 2025
Curie made the further discovery which, in the popular mind, obliterated all the earlier achievements. They succeeded in isolating the new element, radium, which exhibits the actual process of an atom parting with its minute constituents. The story of radium is so recent that a few lines will suffice to recall as much as is needed for the purpose of this chapter.
It has produced paralysis and death in dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, guinea-pigs and other animals, and undoubtedly it might affect human beings in a similar way. Professor Curie said that a single gram of chemically pure radium would be sufficient to destroy the life of every man, woman and child in Paris providing they were separately and properly exposed to its influence.
The rays given out by radium cannot be refracted, polarized, or regularly reflected in the way of ordinary light, although some of them can be turned aside by a magnet. Professor Curie has reported to the French Academy of Science that half a pound of radium salts will in one hour produce a heat equal to the burning of one-third of a foot of hydrogen gas.
Perhaps the reader may feel inclined to say with the Irishman that all this is "as dry as ditch-water," but he will see before long that it has a good deal to do with ourselves. For the present what I want him to realize by a few examples is the mathematical accuracy of Law. The value of these examples lies in their illustration of the fact that the Law can always be trusted to lead us on to further knowledge. We see it working under known conditions, and relying on its unchangeableness, we can then logically infer what it will do under other hypothetical conditions, and in this way many important discoveries have been made. For instance it was in this way that Mendeléef, the Russian chemist, assumed the existence of three then unknown chemical elements, now called Scandium, Gallium and Germanium. There was a gap in the orderly sequence of the chemical elements, and relying on the old maxim "Natura nihil facit per saltum" Nature nowhere leaves a gap to jump over he argued that if such elements did not exist they ought to, and so he calculated what these elements ought to be like, giving their atomic weight, chemical affinities, and the like; and when they were discovered many years later they were found to answer exactly to his description. He prophesied, not by guesswork, but by knowledge of the Law; and in much the same way radium was discovered by Professor and Madame Curie. In like manner Hertz was led to the discovery of the electro-magnetic waves. The celebrated mathematician Clerk-Maxwell had calculated all particulars of these waves twenty-five years before Hertz, on the basis of these calculations, worked out his discovery. Again, Neptune, the outermost known planet of our system was discovered by the astronomer Galle in consequence of calculations made by Leverrier. Certain variations in the movements of the planets were mathematically unaccountable except on the hypothesis that some more remote planet existed. Astronomers had faith in mathematics and the hypothetical planet was found to be a reality. Instances of this kind might be multiplied, but as the French say "
"And Marie Curie and Lise Meitner would be Wac corporals," Karen added. "He really hates all of us, doesn't he?" "He hates our Team," MacLeod replied. "In the first place, we're a lot of civilians, who aren't subject to his regulations and don't have to salute him.
The search proved a most difficult one on account of the peculiar nature of the object in question, but the tireless enthusiasm of Madame Curie knew nothing of insurmountable obstacles, and soon drew her husband into the search with her. Her first discovery was that of the substance polonium so named by Madame Curie after her native country, Poland.
The method of analysis founded by M. and Madame Curie has enabled other bodies presenting sensible radioactivity to be discovered. The alkaline metals appear to possess this property in a slight degree. Recently fallen snow and mineral waters manifest marked action. The phenomenon may often be due, however, to a radioactivity induced by radiations already existing in the atmosphere.
M. Curie has calculated directly, by the aid of the calorimeter, the quantity of energy liberated, measuring it entirely in the form of heat. The disengagement of heat accounted for in a grain of radium is uniform, and amounts to 100 calories per hour.
M. Natanson, and subsequently P. Curie and M. Meslin, have shown by various considerations that the same result may be arrived at by choosing units which correspond to any corresponding states; it has also been shown that the theorem of corresponding states in no way implies the exactitude of Van der Waals' formula.
M. and Madame Curie discovered as early as 1899 that every substance placed in the neighbourhood of radium, itself acquired a radioactivity which persisted for several hours after the removal of the radium. This induced radioactivity seems to be carried to other bodies by the intermediary of a gas.
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