Madame Marie Curie got the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the element radium and radioactivity
exactly 100 years ago. But her discovery wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Henri Becquerel. In 1896, this French physicist was trying to figure out if naturally fluorescent minerals would produce X-rays (which had just been discovered) if exposed to the sun. But he was running his experiments bang in the middle of winter and the sun wasn’t cooperating. Becquerel had no choice but to wait for the summer. He put away all his equipment as it was into his drawer only to find the uranium he’d left was affected even without any light. He was sure that the uranium contained an element that was causing such an effect. He got a young Curie to work on this theory, and that’s how they discovered radium and its radioactive properties.# Subscribe to Child Project Helper by Email
exactly 100 years ago. But her discovery wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Henri Becquerel. In 1896, this French physicist was trying to figure out if naturally fluorescent minerals would produce X-rays (which had just been discovered) if exposed to the sun. But he was running his experiments bang in the middle of winter and the sun wasn’t cooperating. Becquerel had no choice but to wait for the summer. He put away all his equipment as it was into his drawer only to find the uranium he’d left was affected even without any light. He was sure that the uranium contained an element that was causing such an effect. He got a young Curie to work on this theory, and that’s how they discovered radium and its radioactive properties.# Subscribe to Child Project Helper by Email
