Radioactive Substances

Explore the remarkable journey of Marie Curie, the pioneering physicist and chemist born in Warsaw in 1867. Celebrated for her groundbreaking research on radioactivity, Curie made history as the first person to win two Nobel Prizes—one in physics in 1903 and another in chemistry in 1911. In an era when the perils of handling radioactive materials were largely unrecognized, Curies relentless quest for knowledge ultimately led to her tragic death in 1934 from an illness attributed to radiation exposure. Radioactive Substances is her exceptional thesis presented to the Faculté de Sciences de Paris in 1903 and later published in Chemical News vol 88, 1903. In this enlightening work, Curie meticulously outlines her pioneering experiments at the Sorbonne, the discovery of the two new elements, radium and polonium, from pitchblende, and shares her extensive measurements and findings. (Summary by Availle)