![]() ![]() Eventually, both also died of diseases induced by radiation.īut by all accounts Marie Curie was so intent on her research that even if she had recognized the risks there is no reason to believe she would have done anything differently - or that she necessarily should have, given her achievements. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, and son-in-law, Frederic Joliot-Curie - also Nobel Prize winners - continued her work with radioactive material. But she never fully acknowledged that her work had ruined her health. Marie Curie's decades of exposure left her chronically ill and nearly blind from cataracts, and ultimately caused her death at 67, in 1934, from either severe anemia or leukemia. Marie Curie tended to deny the perils of radiation, despite being deeply troubled by the deaths in the 1920's of colleagues and radiation workers from leukemia. Another decade went by, though, before those concerns were taken seriously. They began to suspect that radiation might be a threat to health. As the spontaneous release of energy from certain substances, radioactivity was regarded as a newly identified force of nature, something that would surely lead to insights into the structure of matter, and to practical applications in medicine and science.īut as they would with other 20th century marvels, scientists soon realized that they might have unleashed a menace. Marie Curie herself coined the term ''radioactivity,'' and a century ago, the word conveyed promise and evoked excitement. ![]() THIS year is the 100th anniversary of the Nobel-prize-winning experiments by Marie and Pierre Curie into the origins of radioactivity, and their discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |