The story of Pittsburgh: Radium

Bibliographic data

Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1831622599

Document type:: Multivolume work

Title:: The story of Pittsburgh

Place of publication:: Pittsburgh

Publisher:: First National Bank

Year of publication:: 1919-1930

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1831623226

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-239786

Document type:: Volume

Title:: Radium

Volume count:: Vol. 1, nr. 7

Place of publication:: Pittsburgh

Publisher:: First National Bank

Year of publication:: 1921

Scope:: [ca. 18] Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Radium

Collection:: Economics Books

away after the Uranium had been taken from it. This refuse was examined, and found to give rays with four times the intensity of the rays that Professor Becquerel had first noticed. This suggested, if it did not force the conclusion, that there was an unknown something in this refuse. The search for this small quantity of hitherto undis- covered material is one of the most remarkable pieces of scientific work in verification of a previous train of rea- soning. Three years before its completion, Professor Curie, of the Sorbonne, of Paris, who had made a name for himself as a daring and original worker, had won the love and the hand of Marie Sklodowski. Together, they worked at :his problem through years of depression and even of poverty. It was only the courage of Madame Curie that sustained and carried through the task. She never lost faith; and, as Professor Curie publicly admitted, when he was for abandoning the effort, his wife’s striving, dauntless spirit refused to even think of defeat. The eventual discovery was made by the application of methods that mark the utmost refinement achieved by science for the measurement of small quantities. In brief, and in non-technical language, this work was based upon the fact that dry air is not a conductor of electricity. By appropriate means, however, it can be broken up, so that it will be a conductor. The X-rays had demonstrated that they would break up the air through which they passed and make it a conductor of electricity. The rays that had just been detected as coming from Uranium proved that they can convert the air through which they passed into a feeble conductor of electricity, with more or less of completeness, according to their ntensity. By ingeniously devised and delicately adjusted elec- ical equipment, Madame Curie tested the extent to which each of the components into which she separated the refuse pitchblende ore she found at the mines, gave rays that made air a conductor of electricity. This gave her a

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