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130-511: The Nobel Museum opened in the spring of 2001 for the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize. Its name was changed to Nobel Prize Museum in 2019, in conjunction with Erika Lanner becoming the museum's new director. According to the manifesto of the museum, the intentions are to be a “reflecting and forward-looking and spirited memory of Nobel laureates and their achievements, as well as of the Nobel Prize and Alfred Nobel.” To achieve these aims,

260-604: A Marie Curie Radium Fund and raised money to buy radium, publicising her trip. In 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding received her at the White House to present her with the 1 gram of radium collected in the United States, and the First Lady praised her as an example of a professional achiever who was also a supportive wife. Before the meeting, recognising her growing fame abroad, and embarrassed by

390-508: A cyclotron . Tentatively called " radium F ", polonium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in July 1898, and was named after Marie Curie's native land of Poland ( Latin : Polonia ). Poland at the time was under Russian , German , and Austro-Hungarian partition , and did not exist as an independent country. It was Curie's hope that naming the element after her native land would publicize its lack of independence. Polonium may be

520-528: A garret closer to the university, in the Latin Quarter , and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris , where she enrolled in late 1891. She subsisted on her meagre resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the clothes she had. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. Skłodowska studied during

650-444: A metalloid ) with no stable isotopes , polonium is a chalcogen and chemically similar to selenium and tellurium , though its metallic character resembles that of its horizontal neighbors in the periodic table : thallium , lead , and bismuth . Due to the short half-life of all its isotopes, its natural occurrence is limited to tiny traces of the fleeting polonium-210 (with a half-life of 138 days) in uranium ores , as it

780-495: A neutron trigger or initiator for nuclear weapons and for inspections of oil wells. About 1500 sources of this type, with an individual activity of 1,850 Ci (68 TBq), had been used annually in the Soviet Union. Polonium was also part of brushes or more complex tools that eliminate static charges in photographic plates, textile mills, paper rolls, sheet plastics, and on substrates (such as automotive) prior to

910-449: A "general license", which means that a buyer need not be registered by any authorities. Polonium needs to be replaced in these devices nearly every year because of its short half-life; it is also highly radioactive and therefore has been mostly replaced by less dangerous beta particle sources. Tiny amounts of Po are sometimes used in the laboratory and for teaching purposes—typically of the order of 4–40 kBq (0.11–1.08 μCi), in

1040-540: A 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realise at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tonnes of the ore. In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element they named " polonium ", in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires ( Russian , Austrian , and Prussian ). On 26 December 1898,

1170-590: A NRC Exempt Quantity, which may be held without a radioactive material license. Polonium and its compounds must be handled with caution inside special alpha glove boxes , equipped with HEPA filters and continuously maintained under depression to prevent the radioactive materials from leaking out. Gloves made of natural rubber ( latex ) do not properly withstand chemical attacks, a.o. by concentrated nitric acid (e.g., 6 M HNO 3 ) commonly used to keep polonium in solution while minimizing its sorption onto glass. They do not provide sufficient protection against

1300-574: A Polish patriotic institution of higher learning that admitted women students. Maria made an agreement with her sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława's medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later. In connection with this, Maria took a position first as a home tutor in Warsaw, then for two years as a governess in Szczuki with

1430-515: A Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her a year and a half longer to gather the necessary funds. She was helped by her father, who was able to secure a more lucrative position again. All that time she continued to educate herself , reading books, exchanging letters, and being tutored herself. In early 1889 she returned home to her father in Warsaw. She continued working as

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1560-402: A blue glow which is caused by ionisation of the surrounding air. About one in 100,000 alpha emissions causes an excitation in the nucleus which then results in the emission of a gamma ray with a maximum energy of 803 keV. Polonium is a radioactive element that exists in two metallic allotropes . The alpha form is the only known example of a simple cubic crystal structure in

1690-495: A book, Radioactivity , which was published posthumously in 1935. The physical and societal aspects of the Curies' work contributed to shaping the world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Cornell University professor L. Pearce Williams observes: Polonium Polonium is a chemical element ; it has symbol Po and atomic number 84. A rare and highly radioactive metal (although sometimes classified as

1820-779: A break of about 14 months. In 1912 the Warsaw Scientific Society offered her the directorship of a new laboratory in Warsaw but she declined, focusing on the developing Radium Institute to be completed in August 1914, and on a new street named Rue Pierre-Curie (today rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie). She was appointed director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914. She visited Poland in 1913 and

1950-595: A cascading (α,n) reaction can also be induced to produce Po in large quantities. The final purification is done pyrochemically followed by liquid-liquid extraction techniques. Polonium may now be made in milligram amounts in this procedure which uses high neutron fluxes found in nuclear reactors . Only about 100 grams are produced each year, practically all of it in Russia, making polonium exceedingly rare. This process can cause problems in lead-bismuth based liquid metal cooled nuclear reactors such as those used in

2080-408: A colourless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as radon , to be used for sterilising infected tissue. She provided the radium from her own one-gram supply. It is estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units. Busy with this work, she carried out very little scientific research during that period. In spite of all her humanitarian contributions to

2210-436: A gold medal. After a collapse, possibly due to depression, she spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring. Unable to enrol in a regular institution of higher education because she was a woman, she and her sister Bronisława became involved with the clandestine Flying University (sometimes translated as Floating University ),

2340-965: A governess and remained there until late 1891. She tutored, studied at the Flying University, and began her practical scientific training (1890–91) in a chemistry laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town . The laboratory was run by her cousin Józef Boguski , who had been an assistant in Saint Petersburg to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev . In late 1891, she left Poland for France. In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she would be known in France) briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting

2470-433: A landed family, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father. While working for the latter family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski , a future eminent mathematician. His parents rejected the idea of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them. Maria's loss of the relationship with Żorawski was tragic for both. He soon earned a doctorate and pursued an academic career as

2600-543: A mathematician, becoming a professor and rector of Kraków University . Still, as an old man and a mathematics professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic , he would sit contemplatively before the statue of Maria Skłodowska that had been erected in 1935 before the Radium Institute , which she had founded in 1932. At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława—who a few months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski ,

2730-541: A new laboratory, but it would not be ready until 1906. In December 1904, Curie gave birth to their second daughter, Ève . She hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland. On 19 April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed in a road accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly. Curie

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2860-605: A place at Kraków University because of sexism in academia . A letter from Pierre convinced her to return to Paris to pursue a PhD. At Skłodowska's insistence, Curie had written up his research on magnetism and received his own doctorate in March 1895; he was also promoted to professor at the School. A contemporary quip would call Skłodowska "Pierre's biggest discovery". On 26 July 1895, they were married in Sceaux ; neither wanted

2990-413: A possible field of research for a thesis. She used an innovative technique to investigate samples. Fifteen years earlier, her husband and his brother had developed a version of the electrometer , a sensitive device for measuring electric charge. Using her husband's electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity. Using this technique, her first result

3120-544: A press scandal that was exploited by her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mid-40s) was five years older than Langevin and was misrepresented in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker. When the scandal broke, she was away at a conference in Belgium; on her return, she found an angry mob in front of her house and had to seek refuge, with her daughters, in the home of her friend Camille Marbo . International recognition for her work had been growing to new heights, and

3250-414: A religious service. Curie's dark blue outfit, worn instead of a bridal gown, would serve her for many years as a laboratory outfit. They shared two pastimes: long bicycle trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. In Pierre, Marie had found a new love, a partner, and a scientific collaborator on whom she could depend. In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the existence of X-rays , though

3380-485: A result, polonium solutions are volatile and will evaporate within days unless sealed. At pH about 1, polonium ions are readily hydrolyzed and complexed by acids such as oxalic acid , citric acid , and tartaric acid . Polonium has no common compounds, and almost all of its compounds are synthetically created; more than 50 of those are known. The most stable class of polonium compounds are polonides , which are prepared by direct reaction of two elements. Na 2 Po has

3510-426: A sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: "The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium." She later would recall how she felt "a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible." On 14 April 1898, the Curies optimistically weighed out

3640-455: A single atom basis at STP ( space group Pm 3 m, no. 221). The unit cell has an edge length of 335.2 picometers ; the beta form is rhombohedral . The structure of polonium has been characterized by X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction . Po has the ability to become airborne with ease : if a sample is heated in air to 55 °C (131 °F), 50% of it is vaporized in 45 hours to form diatomic Po 2 molecules, even though

3770-480: A tonne of pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated in 1902. In 1910, she isolated pure radium metal. She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only 138 days. Between 1898 and 1902, the Curies published, jointly or separately, a total of 32 scientific papers, including one that announced that, when exposed to radium , diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster than healthy cells. In 1900, Curie became

3900-602: A woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to. Meanwhile, a new industry began developing, based on radium. The Curies did not patent their discovery and benefited little from this increasingly profitable business. In December 1903 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics , "in recognition of

4030-411: Is a layer of plating which in turn is plated with a material such as gold, which allows the alpha radiation (used in experiments such as cloud chambers) to pass while preventing the polonium from being released and presenting a toxic hazard. Polonium spark plugs were marketed by Firestone from 1940 to 1953. While the amount of radiation from the plugs was minuscule and not a threat to the consumer,

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4160-558: Is a liquid at room temperature; however, this is due to hydrogen bonding. The three oxides, PoO , PoO 2 and PoO 3 , are the products of oxidation of polonium. Halides of the structure PoX 2 , PoX 4 and PoF 6 are known. They are soluble in the corresponding hydrogen halides, i.e., PoCl X in HCl, PoBr X in HBr and PoI 4 in HI. Polonium dihalides are formed by direct reaction of

4290-619: Is about 0.06 mg = 60 μg. In addition to the acute effects, radiation exposure (both internal and external) carries a long-term risk of death from cancer of 5–10% per Sv. The general population is exposed to small amounts of polonium as a radon daughter in indoor air; the isotopes Po and Po are thought to cause the majority of the estimated 15,000–22,000 lung cancer deaths in the US every year that have been attributed to indoor radon. Tobacco smoking causes additional exposure to polonium. The maximum allowable body burden for ingested Po

4420-444: Is about 4.5  Sv . The committed effective dose equivalent Po is 0.51 μSv/ Bq if ingested, and 2.5 μSv/Bq if inhaled. A fatal 4.5 Sv dose can be caused by ingesting 8.8 MBq (240 μCi), about 50  nanograms (ng), or inhaling 1.8 MBq (49 μCi), about 10 ng. One gram of Po could thus in theory poison 20 million people, of whom 10 million would die. The actual toxicity of Po

4550-540: Is approximately 0.2% of the abundance of radium. The amounts in the Earth's crust are not harmful. Polonium has been found in tobacco smoke from tobacco leaves grown with phosphate fertilizers. Because it is present in small concentrations, isolation of polonium from natural sources is a tedious process. The largest batch of the element ever extracted, performed in the first half of the 20th century, contained only 40 Ci (1.5 TBq) (9 mg) of polonium-210 and

4680-493: Is concentrated in these vital organs, it is a greater threat to life than the dose which would be suffered (on average) by the whole body if it were spread evenly throughout the body, in the same way as caesium or tritium (as T 2 O). Po is widely used in industry, and readily available with little regulation or restriction. In the US, a tracking system run by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

4810-432: Is extremely dangerous to humans. Po is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.4 days; it decays directly to its stable daughter isotope , Pb . A milligram (5  curies ) of Po emits about as many alpha particles per second as 5 grams of Ra , which means it is 5,000 times more radioactive than radium. A few curies (1 curie equals 37  gigabecquerels , 1 Ci = 37 GBq) of Po emit

4940-418: Is extremely dangerous, requiring specialized equipment (a negative pressure alpha glove box equipped with high-performance filters), adequate monitoring, and strict handling procedures to avoid any contamination. Alpha particles emitted by polonium will damage organic tissue easily if polonium is ingested, inhaled, or absorbed, although they do not penetrate the epidermis and hence are not hazardous as long as

5070-466: Is known, mostly restricted to dialkyl and diaryl polonides (R 2 Po), triarylpolonium halides (Ar 3 PoX), and diarylpolonium dihalides (Ar 2 PoX 2 ). Polonium also forms soluble compounds with some ligands , such as 2,3-butanediol and thiourea . Oxides Hydrides Halides Polonium has 42 known isotopes, all of which are radioactive . They have atomic masses that range from 186 to 227 u . Po (half-life 138.376 days)

5200-429: Is lower than these estimates because radiation exposure that is spread out over several weeks (the biological half-life of polonium in humans is 30 to 50 days ) is somewhat less damaging than an instantaneous dose. It has been estimated that a median lethal dose of Po is 15 megabecquerels (0.41 mCi), or 0.089 micrograms (μg), still an extremely small amount. For comparison, one grain of table salt

5330-445: Is no relation between her scientific work and the facts of her private life". She was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes, and remains alone with Linus Pauling as Nobel laureates in two fields each. A delegation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz , encouraged her to return to Poland and continue her research in her native country. Curie's second Nobel Prize enabled her to persuade

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5460-404: Is only 1.1 kBq (30 nCi), which is equivalent to a particle massing only 6.8 picograms. The maximum permissible workplace concentration of airborne Po is about 10 Bq/m ( 3 × 10  μCi/cm ). The target organs for polonium in humans are the spleen and liver . As the spleen (150 g) and the liver (1.3 to 3 kg) are much smaller than the rest of the body, if the polonium

5590-457: Is only slightly soluble in alkalis . Polonium solutions are first colored in pink by the Po ions, but then rapidly become yellow because alpha radiation from polonium ionizes the solvent and converts Po into Po . As polonium also emits alpha-particles after disintegration so this process is accompanied by bubbling and emission of heat and light by glassware due to the absorbed alpha particles; as

5720-446: Is the penultimate daughter of natural uranium-238 . Though longer-lived isotopes exist, such as the 124 years half-life of polonium-209, they are much more difficult to produce. Today, polonium is usually produced in milligram quantities by the neutron irradiation of bismuth . Due to its intense radioactivity, which results in the radiolysis of chemical bonds and radioactive self-heating, its chemistry has mostly been investigated on

5850-415: Is the most widely available and is manufactured via neutron capture by natural bismuth . It also naturally occurs as a trace in uranium ores, as it is the penultimate member of the decay chain of U. The longer-lived Po (half-life 124 years, longest-lived of all polonium isotopes) and Po (half-life 2.9 years) can be manufactured through the alpha, proton, or deuteron bombardment of lead or bismuth in

5980-542: The Académie des Sciences the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity (and even a Nobel Prize), would instead have gone to Silvanus Thompson . Curie chose the same rapid means of publication. Women were not eligible for membership of the Académie des Sciences until 1979, so that all her presentations had to be made for her by male colleagues; her paper, giving a brief and simple account of her work,

6110-718: The École Normale Supérieure . The Curies did not have a dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried out in a converted shed next to ESPCI. The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof. They were unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure attendant on their continued unprotected work with radioactive substances. ESPCI did not sponsor her research, but she received subsidies from metallurgical and mining companies and from various organisations and governments. Curie's systematic studies included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite). Her electrometer showed that pitchblende

6240-748: The Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris . She was born in Warsaw , in what was then the Kingdom of Poland , part of the Russian Empire . She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her elder sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. In 1895, she married

6370-562: The Lublin primary school attended by Bolesław Prus , who became a leading figure in Polish literature. Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) for boys. After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home and instructed his children in its use. He

6500-678: The Lunokhod 1 (1970) and Lunokhod 2 (1973) Moon rovers to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights, as well as the Kosmos 84 and 90 satellites (1965). The alpha particles emitted by polonium can be converted to neutrons using beryllium oxide, at a rate of 93 neutrons per million alpha particles. Po-BeO mixtures are used as passive neutron sources with a gamma-ray -to- neutron production ratio of 1.13 ± 0.05, lower than for nuclear fission -based neutron sources. Examples of Po-BeO mixtures or alloys used as neutron sources are

6630-544: The Red Cross Radiology Service and set up France's first military radiology centre, operational by late 1914. Assisted at first by a military doctor and her 17-year-old daughter Irène , Curie directed the installation of 20 mobile radiological vehicles and another 200 radiological units at field hospitals in the first year of the war. Later, she began training other women as aides. In 1915, Curie produced hollow needles containing "radium emanation",

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6760-527: The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry . That same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre Curie was an instructor at The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI Paris). They were introduced by Polish physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski , who had learned that she

6890-530: The Soviet Navy 's K-27 . Measures must be taken in these reactors to deal with the unwanted possibility of Po being released from the coolant. The longer-lived isotopes of polonium, Po and Po, can be formed by proton or deuteron bombardment of bismuth using a cyclotron . Other more neutron-deficient and more unstable isotopes can be formed by the irradiation of platinum with carbon nuclei. Polonium-based sources of alpha particles were produced in

7020-467: The Windscale Piles had been releasing polonium-210. The Windscale fire brought the need for testing of the land downwind for radioactive material contamination, and this is how it was found. An estimate of 8.8 terabecquerels (240 Ci) of polonium-210 has been made. It has also been suggested that Irène Joliot-Curie 's 1956 death from leukaemia was owed to the radiation effects of polonium. She

7150-407: The antifluorite structure, the polonides of Ca , Ba , Hg , Pb and lanthanides form a NaCl lattice, BePo and CdPo have the wurtzite and MgPo the nickel arsenide structure. Most polonides decompose upon heating to about 600 °C, except for HgPo that decomposes at ~300 °C and the lanthanide polonides, which do not decompose but melt at temperatures above 1000 °C. For example,

7280-481: The decay chain of U ; Po and Po occur in the decay chain of U ; Po and Po occur in the decay chain of Th ; and Po and Po occur in the decay chain of Np . (No primordial Np survives, but traces of it are continuously regenerated through (n,2n) knockout reactions in natural U.) Of these, Po is the only isotope with a half-life longer than 3 minutes. Polonium can be found in uranium ores at about 0.1 mg per metric ton (1 part in 10 ), which

7410-405: The nuclear chain reaction at the moment of prompt-criticality to ensure that the weapon did not fizzle . 'Urchin' was used in early U.S. weapons; subsequent U.S. weapons utilized a pulse neutron generator for the same purpose. Much of the basic physics of polonium was classified until after the war. The fact that a polonium-beryllium (Po-Be) initiator was used in the gun-type nuclear weapons

7540-512: The paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–65). This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria and her elder siblings, to a difficult struggle to get ahead in life. Maria's paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski had been principal of

7670-537: The Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named " radium ", from the Latin word for "ray". In the course of their research, they also coined the word " radioactivity ". To prove their discoveries beyond any doubt, the Curies sought to isolate polonium and radium in pure form. Pitchblende is a complex mineral; the chemical separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The discovery of polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles

7800-416: The Curies to hire their first laboratory assistant. Following the award of the Nobel Prize, and galvanised by an offer from the University of Geneva , which offered Pierre Curie a position, the University of Paris gave him a professorship and the chair of physics, although the Curies still did not have a proper laboratory. Upon Pierre Curie's complaint, the University of Paris relented and agreed to furnish

7930-627: The French Office de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants ( OPRI ) "concluded that she could not have been exposed to lethal levels of radium while she was alive". They pointed out that radium poses a risk only if it is ingested, and speculated that her illness was more likely to have been due to her use of radiography during the First World War. She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux , alongside her husband Pierre. Sixty years later, in 1995, in honour of their achievements,

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8060-586: The French government to support the Radium Institute, built in 1914, where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine. A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, she was hospitalised with depression and a kidney ailment. For most of 1912, she avoided public life but did spend time in England with her friend and fellow physicist Hertha Ayrton . She returned to her laboratory only in December, after

8190-529: The French physicist Pierre Curie , and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with him and with the physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the theory of "radioactivity"—a term she coined. In 1906, Pierre Curie died in a Paris street accident. Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium , using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes . Under her direction,

8320-423: The French press's hypocrisy in portraying Curie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French honour, but portraying her as a French heroine when she received foreign honours such as her Nobel Prizes. In 1911 it was revealed that Curie was involved in a year-long affair with physicist Paul Langevin , a former student of Pierre Curie's, a married man who was estranged from his wife. This resulted in

8450-475: The French war effort, Curie never received any formal recognition of it from the French government. Also, promptly after the war started, she attempted to donate her gold Nobel Prize medals to the war effort but the French National Bank refused to accept them. She did buy war bonds , using her Nobel Prize money. She said: I am going to give up the little gold I possess. I shall add to this

8580-574: The Nobel Bistro. The Nobel tea is usually served every year at the Nobel banquet. The under side of chairs in the bistro have been signed by Nobel laureates. Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie ( Polish: [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska kʲiˈri] ; née   Skłodowska ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( / ˈ k j ʊər i / KURE -ee ; French: [maʁi kyʁi] ),

8710-520: The Polish cause. After the war, she summarised her wartime experiences in a book, Radiology in War (1919). In 1920, for the 25th anniversary of the discovery of radium, the French government established a stipend for her; its previous recipient was Louis Pasteur , who had died in 1895. In 1921, she was welcomed triumphantly when she toured the United States to raise funds for research on radium. Mrs. William Brown Meloney , after interviewing Curie, created

8840-655: The Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element she discovered polonium , after her native country. Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy ( Haute-Savoie ), France, of aplastic anaemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I . In addition to her Nobel Prizes, she received numerous other honours and tributes; in 1995 she became

8970-537: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, overcoming opposition prompted by the Langevin scandal, honoured her a second time, with the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry . This award was "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element." Because of

9100-514: The University of Edinburgh . Curie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934. A few months later, on 4 July 1934, she died aged 66 at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie , from aplastic anaemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation, causing damage to her bone marrow. The damaging effects of ionising radiation were not known at the time of her work, which had been carried out without

9230-573: The University of Paris was not giving Curie a proper laboratory and had suggested that she move to the Pasteur Institute. Only then, with the threat of Curie leaving, did the University of Paris relent, and eventually the Curie Pavilion became a joint initiative of the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute. In 1910 Curie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive emissions that

9360-482: The University of Paris, however. In her later years, she headed the Radium Institute ( Institut du radium , now Curie Institute , Institut Curie ), a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris . The initiative for creating the Radium Institute had come in 1909 from Pierre Paul Émile Roux , director of the Pasteur Institute, who had been disappointed that

9490-535: The University of Rochester from 1944 to 1947, in order to study its biological behaviour. These studies were funded by the Manhattan Project and the AEC. Four men and a woman participated, all suffering from terminal cancers, and ranged in age from their early thirties to early forties; all were chosen because experimenters wanted subjects who had not been exposed to polonium either through work or accident. Po

9620-722: The Warsaw Radium Institute with radium; the Institute opened in 1932, with her sister Bronisława its director. These distractions from her scientific labours, and the attendant publicity, caused her much discomfort but provided resources for her work. In 1930 she was elected to the International Atomic Weights Committee , on which she served until her death. In 1931, Curie was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of

9750-408: The action of methylcobalamin . This is similar to the way in which mercury , selenium , and tellurium are methylated in living things to create organometallic compounds. Studies investigating the metabolism of polonium-210 in rats have shown that only 0.002 to 0.009% of polonium-210 ingested is excreted as volatile polonium-210. The median lethal dose (LD 50 ) for acute radiation exposure

9880-527: The alpha particles remain outside the body and do not come near the eyes, which are living tissue. Wearing chemically resistant and intact gloves is a mandatory precaution to avoid transcutaneous diffusion of polonium directly through the skin . Polonium delivered in concentrated nitric acid can easily diffuse through inadequate gloves (e.g., latex gloves ) or the acid may damage the gloves. Polonium does not have toxic chemical properties. It has been reported that some microbes can methylate polonium by

10010-406: The application of coatings. Alpha particles emitted by polonium ionize air molecules that neutralize charges on the nearby surfaces. Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 microcuries (20 MBq) of Po as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity. In the US, devices with no more than 500 μCi (19 MBq) of (sealed) Po per unit can be bought in any amount under

10140-492: The artist Artan Mansouri who made paintings that symbolized Nobel's life. Besides that, the shop offers a lot of educational toys for children, books by and about Nobel Prize laureates, and also unique items only found in the Nobel Museum shop. There is also Bistro Nobel featuring Nobel chocolate, Swedish cakes, and also lunch and dinner. At the bistro, Nobel ice cream is served as well; this ice cream can only be found in

10270-425: The benefits of such plugs quickly diminished after approximately a month because of polonium's short half-life and because buildup on the conductors would block the radiation that improved engine performance. (The premise behind the polonium spark plug, as well as Alfred Matthew Hubbard 's prototype radium plug that preceded it, was that the radiation would improve ionization of the fuel in the cylinder and thus allow

10400-433: The committee until 1934 and contributed to League of Nations' scientific coordination with other prominent researchers such as Albert Einstein , Hendrik Lorentz , and Henri Bergson . In 1923 she wrote a biography of her late husband, titled Pierre Curie . In 1925 she visited Poland to participate in a ceremony laying the foundations for Warsaw's Radium Institute . Her second American tour, in 1929, succeeded in equipping

10530-399: The contamination from polonium ( diffusion of Po solution through the intact latex membrane, or worse, direct contact through tiny holes and cracks produced when the latex begins to suffer degradation by acids or UV from ambient light); additional surgical gloves are necessary (inside the glovebox to protect the main gloves when handling strong acids and bases, and also from outside to protect

10660-446: The day and tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. In 1893, she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann . Meanwhile, she continued studying at the University of Paris and with the aid of a fellowship she was able to earn a second degree in 1894. Skłodowska had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels, commissioned by

10790-445: The element bismuth , and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance in the ore. Radium, however, was more elusive; it is closely related chemically to barium , and pitchblende contains both elements. By 1898 the Curies had obtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach. The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium salt by differential crystallisation . From

10920-399: The element thorium was also radioactive. Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By mid-1898 he was so invested in it that he decided to drop his work on crystals and to join her. The [research] idea [writes Reid] was her own; no one helped her formulate it, and although she took it to her husband for his opinion she clearly established her ownership of it. She later recorded

11050-535: The elements or by reduction of PoCl 4 with SO 2 and with PoBr 4 with H 2 S at room temperature. Tetrahalides can be obtained by reacting polonium dioxide with HCl, HBr or HI. Other polonium compounds include the polonite , potassium polonite ; various polonate solutions; and the acetate , bromate , carbonate , citrate , chromate , cyanide, formate , (II) or (IV) hydroxide, nitrate , selenate , selenite , monosulfide, sulfate , disulfate or sulfite salts. A limited organopolonium chemistry

11180-410: The extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." At first the committee had intended to honour only Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, but a committee member and advocate for women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler , alerted Pierre to the situation, and after his complaint, Marie's name

11310-596: The fact that she had no French official distinctions to wear in public, the French government offered her a Legion of Honour award, but she refused. In 1922 she became a fellow of the French Academy of Medicine . She also travelled to other countries, appearing publicly and giving lectures in Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and Czechoslovakia. Led by Curie, the Institute produced four more Nobel Prize winners, including her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and her son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie . Eventually it became one of

11440-501: The fact twice in her biography of her husband to ensure there was no chance whatever of any ambiguity. It [is] likely that already at this early stage of her career [she] realized that... many scientists would find it difficult to believe that a woman could be capable of the original work in which she was involved. She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority . Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented his discovery to

11570-621: The first element named to highlight a political controversy. This element was the first one discovered by the Curies while they were investigating the cause of pitchblende radioactivity . Pitchblende, after removal of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium , was more radioactive than the uranium and thorium combined. This spurred the Curies to search for additional radioactive elements. They first separated out polonium from pitchblende in July 1898, and five months later, also isolated radium . German scientist Willy Marckwald successfully isolated 3 milligrams of polonium in 1902, though at

11700-536: The first woman elected to membership in the academy. Despite Curie's fame as a scientist working for France, the public's attitude tended toward xenophobia —the same that had led to the Dreyfus affair —which also fuelled false speculation that Curie was Jewish. During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press as a foreigner and atheist. Her daughter later remarked on

11830-543: The first woman faculty member at the École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined the faculty of the University of Paris. In 1902 she visited Poland on the occasion of her father's death. In June 1903, supervised by Gabriel Lippmann , Curie was awarded her doctorate from the University of Paris . That month the couple were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being

11960-918: The first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Paris Panthéon , and Poland declared 2011 the Year of Marie Curie during the International Year of Chemistry . She is the subject of numerous biographical works. Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw , in Congress Poland in the Russian Empire , on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski . The elder siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania ) were Zofia (born 1862, nicknamed Zosia ), Józef (born 1863, nicknamed Józio ), Bronisława (born 1865, nicknamed Bronia ) and Helena (born 1866, nicknamed Hela ). On both

12090-457: The form of sealed sources, with the polonium deposited on a substrate or in a resin or polymer matrix—are often exempt from licensing by the NRC and similar authorities as they are not considered hazardous. Small amounts of Po are manufactured for sale to the public in the United States as "needle sources" for laboratory experimentation, and they are retailed by scientific supply companies. The polonium

12220-480: The former Soviet Union . Such sources were applied for measuring the thickness of industrial coatings via attenuation of alpha radiation. Because of intense alpha radiation, a one-gram sample of Po will spontaneously heat up to above 500 °C (932 °F) generating about 140 watts of power. Therefore, Po is used as an atomic heat source to power radioisotope thermoelectric generators via thermoelectric materials. For example, Po heat sources were used in

12350-399: The front lines to assist battlefield surgeons, including to obviate amputations when in fact limbs could be saved. After a quick study of radiology, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, and auxiliary generators, and she developed mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known as petites Curies ("Little Curies"). She became the director of

12480-440: The mechanism behind their production was not yet understood. In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence , did not depend on an external source of energy but seemed to arise spontaneously from uranium itself. Influenced by these two important discoveries, Curie decided to look into uranium rays as

12610-480: The melting point of polonium is 254 °C (489 °F) and its boiling point is 962 °C (1,764 °F). More than one hypothesis exists for how polonium does this; one suggestion is that small clusters of polonium atoms are spalled off by the alpha decay. The chemistry of polonium is similar to that of tellurium , although it also shows some similarities to its neighbor bismuth due to its metallic character. Polonium dissolves readily in dilute acids but

12740-533: The motor to fire more quickly and efficiently.) Polonium can be hazardous and has no biological role. By mass, polonium-210 is around 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide (the LD 50 for Po is less than 1 microgram for an average adult (see below) compared with about 250 milligrams for hydrogen cyanide ). The main hazard is its intense radioactivity (as an alpha emitter), which makes it difficult to handle safely. Even in microgram amounts, handling Po

12870-480: The museum offers exhibitions, films, theatre plays, and debates related to science; in addition to its bistro and shop. Museum exhibitions feature prominent Nobel laureates such as Marie Curie , Nelson Mandela , and Winston Churchill . The museum frequently offers creative exhibitions such as “Sketches of science”, a photo exhibition with 42 Nobel laureates photographed with their own sketch of their Nobel discovery. This exhibition has also been shown in other parts of

13000-453: The negative publicity due to her affair with Langevin, the chair of the Nobel committee , Svante Arrhenius , attempted to prevent her attendance at the official ceremony for her Nobel Prize in Chemistry, citing her questionable moral standing. Curie replied that she would be present at the ceremony, because "the prize has been given to her for her discovery of polonium and radium" and that "there

13130-473: The operator hands against Po contamination from diffusion, or direct contact through glove defects). Chemically more resistant, and also denser, neoprene and butyl gloves shield alpha particles emitted by polonium better than natural rubber. The use of natural rubber gloves is not recommended for handling Po solutions. Despite the element's highly hazardous properties, circumstances in which polonium poisoning can occur are rare. Its extreme scarcity in nature,

13260-418: The polonide of praseodymium (PrPo) melts at 1250 °C, and that of thulium (TmPo) melts at 2200 °C. PbPo is one of the very few naturally occurring polonium compounds, as polonium alpha decays to form lead . Polonium hydride ( PoH 2 ) is a volatile liquid at room temperature prone to dissociation; it is thermally unstable. Water is the only other known hydrogen chalcogenide which

13390-435: The previous day, he had been working for five hours in an area in which, unknown to him, a capsule containing Po had depressurised and begun to disperse in aerosol form. Over this period, his total intake of airborne Po was estimated at 0.11 GBq (almost 25 times the estimated LD 50 by inhalation of 4.5 MBq). Despite treatment, his condition continued to worsen and he died 13 days after the exposure event. From 1955 to 1957

13520-734: The remains of both were transferred to the Paris Panthéon . Their remains were sealed in a lead lining because of the radioactivity. She became the second woman to be interred at the Panthéon (after Sophie Berthelot ) and the first woman to be honoured with interment in the Panthéon on her own merits. Because of their levels of radioactive contamination, her papers from the 1890s are considered too dangerous to handle. Even her cookbooks are highly radioactive. Her papers are kept in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing. In her last year, she worked on

13650-404: The safety measures later developed. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket, and she stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the faint light that the substances gave off in the dark. Curie was also exposed to X-rays from unshielded equipment while serving as a radiologist in field hospitals during the First World War. When Curie's body was exhumed in 1995,

13780-624: The scientific medals, which are quite useless to me. There is something else: by sheer laziness I had allowed the money for my second Nobel Prize to remain in Stockholm in Swedish crowns. This is the chief part of what we possess. I should like to bring it back here and invest it in war loans. The state needs it. Only, I have no illusions: this money will probably be lost. She was also an active member in committees of Polonia in France dedicated to

13910-486: The short half-lives of all its isotopes, the specialised facilities and equipment needed to obtain any significant quantity, and safety precautions against laboratory accidents all make harmful exposure events unlikely. As such, only a handful of cases of radiation poisoning specifically attributable to polonium exposure have been confirmed. In response to concerns about the risks of occupational polonium exposure, quantities of Po were administered to five human volunteers at

14040-468: The tests did not include bone marrow. Sadeh, one of his students, and two colleagues died from various cancers over the subsequent few years. The issue was investigated secretly, but there was never any formal admission of a connection between the leak and the deaths. The Church Rock uranium mill spill July 16, 1979 is reported to have released polonium-210 . The report states animals had higher concentrations of lead-210, polonium-210 and radium-226 than

14170-424: The time he believed it was a new element, which he dubbed "radio-tellurium", and it was not until 1905 that it was demonstrated to be the same as polonium. In the United States, polonium was produced as part of the Manhattan Project 's Dayton Project during World War II . Polonium and beryllium were the key ingredients of the ' Urchin ' initiator at the center of the bomb's spherical pit . 'Urchin' initiated

14300-638: The trace scale only. Polonium was discovered on July 18, 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie , when it was extracted from the uranium ore pitchblende and identified solely by its strong radioactivity: it was the first element to be discovered in this way. Polonium was named after Marie Skłodowska-Curie's homeland of Poland, which at the time was partitioned between three countries. Polonium has few applications, and those are related to its radioactivity: heaters in space probes , antistatic devices , sources of neutrons and alpha particles , and poison (e.g., poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko ). It

14430-424: The world as well, including Dubai and Singapore . For visitors who want to bring a piece of the museum home, a souvenir shop is available that contains items about Alfred Nobel and the museum. One of the most popular items is Alfred Nobel's gold medal made in dark fair trade chocolate. Another one is the Swedish “dynamite” candy that is flavored with jalapeño pepper. During 2011, the souvenir shop collaborated with

14560-568: The world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1920, and the Curie Institute in Warsaw in 1932; both remain major medical research centres. During World War I , she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals . While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames, never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters

14690-695: The world's four major radioactivity-research laboratories, the others being the Cavendish Laboratory , with Ernest Rutherford ; the Institute for Radium Research, Vienna , with Stefan Meyer ; and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry , with Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner . In August 1922 Marie Curie became a member of the League of Nations ' newly created International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation . She sat on

14820-426: Was a Polish and naturalised -French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity . She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize , the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice , and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie , was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching

14950-483: Was accidentally exposed in 1946 when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench. As well, several deaths in Israel during 1957–1969 have been alleged to have resulted from Po exposure. A leak was discovered at a Weizmann Institute laboratory in 1957. Traces of Po were found on the hands of Professor Dror Sadeh, a physicist who researched radioactive materials. Medical tests indicated no harm, but

15080-422: Was added to the nomination. Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Curie and her husband declined to go to Stockholm to receive the prize in person; they were too busy with their work, and Pierre Curie, who disliked public ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill. As Nobel laureates were required to deliver a lecture, the Curies finally undertook the trip in 1905. The award money allowed

15210-539: Was classified until the 1960s. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project funded human experiments using polonium on five people at the University of Rochester between 1943 and 1947. The people were administered between 9 and 22 microcuries (330 and 810  kBq ) of polonium to study its excretion . Polonium is a very rare element in nature because of the short half-lives of all its isotopes. Nine isotopes, from 210 to 218 inclusive, occur in traces as decay products : Po, Po, and Po occur in

15340-430: Was devastated by her husband's death. On 13 May 1906 the physics department of the University of Paris decided to retain the chair that had been created for her late husband and offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to create a world-class laboratory as a tribute to her husband Pierre. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Curie's quest to create a new laboratory did not end with

15470-475: Was eventually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on a bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house. Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls; she resigned from the position after Maria was born. She died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria

15600-414: Was eventually named for her and Pierre: the curie . Nevertheless, in 1911 the French Academy of Sciences failed, by one or two votes, to elect her to membership in the academy. Elected instead was Édouard Branly , an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the wireless telegraph . It was only over half a century later, in 1962, that a doctoral student of Curie's, Marguerite Perey , became

15730-406: Was four times as active as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small quantities of another substance that was far more active than uranium. She began a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and by 1898 she discovered that

15860-408: Was implemented in 2007 to register purchases of more than 16 curies (590 GBq) of polonium-210 (enough to make up 5,000 lethal doses). The IAEA "is said to be considering tighter regulations ... There is talk that it might tighten the polonium reporting requirement by a factor of 10, to 1.6 curies (59 GBq)." As of 2013, this is still the only alpha emitting byproduct material available, as

15990-469: Was injected into four hospitalised patients, and orally given to a fifth. None of the administered doses (all ranging from 0.17 to 0.30 μ Ci kg ) approached fatal quantities. The first documented death directly resulting from polonium poisoning occurred in the Soviet Union , on 10 July 1954. An unidentified 41-year-old man presented for medical treatment on 29 June, with severe vomiting and fever;

16120-439: Was looking for a larger laboratory space, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre could access. Though Curie did not have a large laboratory, he was able to find some space for Skłodowska where she was able to begin work. Their mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for one another. Eventually, Pierre proposed marriage, but at first Skłodowska did not accept as she

16250-406: Was obtained by processing 37 tonnes of residues from radium production. Polonium is now usually obtained by irradiating bismuth with high-energy neutrons or protons. In 1934, an experiment showed that when natural Bi is bombarded with neutrons , Bi is created, which then decays to Po via beta-minus decay. By irradiating certain bismuth salts containing light element nuclei such as beryllium,

16380-549: Was presented for her to the Académie on 12 April 1898 by her former professor, Gabriel Lippmann . Even so, just as Thompson had been beaten by Becquerel, so Curie was beaten in the race to tell of her discovery that thorium gives off rays in the same way as uranium; two months earlier, Gerhard Carl Schmidt had published his own finding in Berlin. At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in

16510-452: Was still planning to go back to her native country. Curie, however, declared that he was ready to move with her to Poland, even if it meant being reduced to teaching French. Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Skłodowska returned to Warsaw, where she visited her family. She was still labouring under the illusion that she would be able to work in her chosen field in Poland, but she was denied

16640-470: Was ten years old. Less than three years earlier, Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder. Maria's father was an atheist , her mother a devout Catholic. The deaths of Maria's mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic. When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska; next, she attended a gymnasium for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with

16770-428: Was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uranium present. She hypothesized that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules but must come from the atom itself. This hypothesis was an important step in disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible. In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support her family, Curie began teaching at

16900-562: Was welcomed in Warsaw but the visit was mostly ignored by the Russian authorities. The institute's development was interrupted by the First World War , as most researchers were drafted into the French Army ; it fully resumed its activities after the war, in 1919. During World War I , Curie recognised that wounded soldiers were best served if operated upon as soon as possible. She saw a need for field radiological centres near

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