Introduction to Marie Curie Paul Thompson, Vice-Chair Radiochemistry Group, Royal Society of Chemistry
Purpose of Meeting Welcome to this meeting on behalf of the Radiochemistry Group RSC. The meeting is centred around 2 events 100 th anniversary of the award of her second Nobel Prize, she had practised earlier with one for the junior science of Physics some years earlier. 2011 being the International Year of Chemistry
Purpose of Talk It is not the aim to provide a mini-biography of Marie Curie; others have done this during the year. I intend to show by key events in Marie's life a relationship between her work and how radiochemistry has developed as shown by the talks scheduled for today Finally to show a personal connection between me and Marie Curie as a clue it involves food and the eating of it.
Points on Marie's life Marie became the first woman to gain a Nobel prize. Marie became the first person to gain two Nobel prize. Marie became the first to obtain two Nobel prizes in two separate subjects In her teaching laboratory it was unusual at the time that about 25% of the students were female a fact we continue to observe by the ratio of female speakers at this meeting!
Radiochemistry: Marie Curie to To-day Marie and Pierre were the first to use the term Radioactivity in 1898. From this grew the science of radiochemistry which the talks today illustrate the many aspects of.
Curie and Becquerel s Rays Becquerel s Rays darkened X-ray films in the dark - was the subject of Marie s PhD. The ability of radium to cause burns was noted by Pierre and Henri Bequerel, and this led to its use in cancer treatment - a major use of radium in the early decades of the 20 th century. On the Health side during WWI Marie and her daughters toured the front line with mobile X-ray units assisting surgeons to operate on the wounded.
Discovery of Elements Marie, with her husband Pierre, discovered 2 new elements polonium and radium. In the talk on heavy elements we have the modern equivalent the search for the superheavy elements. In the case of Marie and Pierre it was international cooperation between France and Poland; the modern version is USA and Russia.
Liese Meitner As an aside, radium gives a local connection to the AWE neighbourhood. Marie was the director of La Institute du Radium in Paris until her death in 1934. The post was taken over by her close associate Andre- Louis Debiere. Mon. Debiere had a claim to having discovered actinium, as did Otto Hahn. Otto Hahn is better known for his role in the explanation of nuclear fission with Liese Meitner. Liese Meitner is buried in Bramley Churchyard, about 5 miles from AWE.
Polonium and Litvinenko / Round Robin The connection here is easy as Marie and Pierre discovered polonium. In his acceptance speech for the Physics Nobel Prize Pierre stated... in criminal hands radium could become dangerous... Except for his choice of the two elements they discovered, the events of 2006 showed a remarkable vision from over 100 years earlier. The recent development of Nuclear Forensics shows that crime involving RAM is a growing concern hence the talk on Nuclear Trafficking.
Safeguards / Nuclear Power The previous connection to Fission and the developments after WWII of both a Civil and Military nuclear industry led to the creation of IAEA and the decision to instigate Safeguards. A further connection with fission is that Marie's elder daughter Irene married Frederic Joliot, and they were connected with the reporting that neutrons were emitted during fission in 1939. An important use of fission is that of nuclear reactors, and the accident at Fukushima
Mass Spectrometry Mass Spectrometers are machines that use magnetic fields to separate ions of different masses. A Cyclotron is a similar instrument although they tend to be used for lighter ions. In 1944 the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley was used to bombard Pu-239 with 40 MeV alpha particles to form a new element. The new element was named curium in honour of the Curies.