Shreya Vallimanalan
7-7
12/5/2015
Marie Curie and the Exploration of Radium During the early nineteenth century, French physicist Henri Becquerel observed radioactivity by recording how uranium emits radiation that is strong enough to blacken covered photographic plates. Scientists used to believe that uranium emitted “rays”, after they headed about Becquerel’s work. Later on, after Curie’s research, they came to know that those “rays” were actually very small particles. Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays, which led Marie Curie to use x-ray treatment during World War I to heal thousands of wounded soldiers and educate thousands of women about this technique. Without Roentgen’s early discoveries, Marie Curie would not have been able to
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Marie Curie noticed that so many soldiers during the war were getting injured and she wanted some way to treat many soldiers at once, by knowing what type of injuries they had, like bullet or shrapnel injuries and broken bones. x-rays show a very clear and detailed picture of a person’s spinal structure. In earlier times, many people did not have access to x-rays, so it would be very hard for doctors to figure out what injuries a particular person had. According to the American Institute of Physics, during World War I, Marie Curie trained 150 women in how to use x-rays to treat people. She established a radiotherapy center, where she would use radon gas and grams of radium to destroy any diseased tissue in a person’s body. She also invented “radiology cars”. She and her daughter Irene went to different automobile companies and transformed ordinary cars into radiology cars. Later on, they began to be called “petite Curies”. The cars would be loaded with equipment, a doctor, technician, and driver. Once the car arrives at the desired destination, the team will take half an hour, at the most, to unpack and set up all of the equipment. Then, they would start treating the patients. Most of the treatments performed with radiology cars were x-ray treatments on patients. These vehicles were very useful, especially since World War I was a very hard time of war. Another reason for …show more content…
Henri Becquerel studied how uranium emitted radiation. Using this discovery as her thesis topic, Marie Curie wanted to know more. According to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, she wondered whether or not there were other elements that emitted radiation. She soon discovered that thorium emitted radiation as well. She came to the conclusion that radioactivity does not depend on how the atoms are arranged into molecules, but with the atoms themselves. For this revolutionary discovery, Marie and Pierre Curie won a Nobel Prize in Physics. She even coined the term “radioactivity”, which is the disintegration of an unstable nucleus by the change of the energy level of the nucleus by gamma-ray emission. She also changed scientists’ views on atoms. Originally, scientists believed that atoms were unbreakable bits of matter, but Marie Curie proved them wrong. She stated that radium atoms break apart into several smaller atoms of all different sizes. This was one of her greatest motivations to discover two incredibly radioactive elements, radium and polonium. She also proved that rays are actually energy that is released from within the atom, rather than the age old belief that rays came from the surface of the material. She worked with J.J. Thompson, using x-rays, to figure out that atoms were not just the smallest bits of matter, since there were rays that are made up of even smaller
Marie Curie worked with electric generators and build twenty mobile radiological units. Vehicles were supplied with mobile x-rays to provide immediate results and
The pair were both very dedicated scientists and at first worked on separate projects. Marie was very interested in the work of a French physicist named Henri Becquerel. He discovered that uranium casts off rays. Marie Curie took Henri Becquerel’s work a little further and conducted experiments on uranium rays. She discovered that the rays remained the same despite the condition or form of the uranium. This idea created the field of atomic physics and Madame Curie invented the term radioactivity to describe the occurrence. Later, in 1897, Marie and Pierre had a daughter. The birth of their daughter didn’t slow down their work. In order to help Marie with her exploration of radioactivity, Pierre decided to put his work aside. In 1898 they both discovered a new radioactive element. They named it polonium in honor of Marie’s country, Poland. The pair also discovered the existence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende, they named it radium. In 1902, the pair announced that they made a decigram of pure radium and demonstrated its existence as a special chemical element.
These debut technologies included the x-ray machine, prosthetic design, and splints. Although the x-ray machine had been invented a couple of decades before the war, it was first recognized as a useful tool during World War I because it was invaluable for doctors searching for bullets and shrapnel in their patients’ bodies. “Over the duration of the war, one million wounded men had been helped by this technology” (“Progress in Medicine and Surgery During the First World War” reseau-canope.fr), therefore, the technology of the x-ray machine was highly beneficial in the war. In 1914, a French-Polish physicist named Marie Curie went to the battle front with the Union Des Femmes De France and with the help of The Red Cross, she equipped several hundred vehicles with x-ray machines. This created veritable radiological ambulance service for soldiers who were wounded on the battle front.
Irene Joliot-Curie has been awarded with the Nobel Prize for chemistry, her and her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. Her most significant achievement is uncovering how to synthesize radioactive elements.
The discovery of x-rays revolutionized the entire medical profession, and provided a basis for diagnostic radiology. The x-ray showed the internal structures of the human body, without having to resort to surgery. Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays was a discovery that would benefit mankind for years.
The X-ray that was caused due to Marie Curie helped while she was helping soldiers in the war to examine them. In addition “But at the start of the war, X-ray machines were still found only in city hospitals, far from the battlefields where wounded troops were being treated. Curie’s solution was to invent the first “radiological car” – a vehicle containing the X-ray machine and photographic darkroom equipment – which could be driven right up to the battlefield where army surgeons could use X-rays to guide their surgeries.” Marie Curie and her research helped the ww1 troops get the help they needed with the x-ray exams to
X-Rays – 1895 marks the year, Wilhelm Roentgen, a German Physicist, discovered a type of radiation that could go through opaque objects. Before the invention of x-rays internal diagnostics were not made. Fractured bones, tumors and even bullets were diagnosed at the mere guess of doctors. On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen would change the history of the medical field. Roentgen used a long, narrow tube filled with gas. He exposed the inside of the tube to a high electric voltage. The tube revealed a fluorescent glow. After this, he covered the tube with a type of heavy black paper, passing the electricity through it once again. At this point, he discovered the tube was producing a ray
Her revolutionary ideas and discoveries laid the foundation for radiochemistry and led to the creation of x-rays, which benefitted soldiers during World War II and civilians afterward. Because of Marie’s unwillingness to be defeated by grief and hardship, tumors can now be found in the body, considerably decreasing the chance of getting cancer. Not only did Marie pave the way in the medical field, her success offered women a chance to become scientists. “Curie, quiet, dignified and unassuming, was held in high esteem and admiration by scientists throughout the world ” (Kulakowski). Marie Curie’s determination and humility makes her one of the most intelligent women in history, making her mother of
With this stability and mass production, x-rays machines became very common everywhere. From large factories, to doctors offices, all the way to the corner store of small towns, where children and adults alike could insert a coin into a machine and view the bones in their feet. (3.) Because of their relative adolescences in the world, not much was known about x-rays or their effects on the human body. The first theories about the rays’ effects on the human body were that they had beneficial applications. With this being the only theory about their effect, widespread use went on, unmonitored, and unregulated. This unregulated use led to injuries but because of their slow onset the injuries were never attributed to x-rays. While some scientists tied certain skin burns to over exposure of x-rays it wasn’t until popular minds of the world like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and William J. Morton expressed that they experienced eye pain when dealing with the rays for extended periods of time that people began to connect the dots and understand the negative
Curie did an experiment by using samples of radioactive substances and found out that these samples gave of radioactive waves that were a lot stronger than thorium and uranium (Birch 33). She was shocked by these results and wanted to do further research. So, Pierre Curie decided to collaborate with Marie Curie on her
Her discovery of radium played a big role on how the X-ray even works.. Without the X-ray we would most likely not be able to see a lot of problems in people, such as not being able to pinpoint the exact bone that is broken in somebody's body, because if someone breaks a bone and we aren't able to see which exact bone is broken, that person will be in trouble because we won't be able to do a lot besides let it heal. Marie Curie also discovered polonium but polonium is usually just used as a static remover. Polonium did do something more but the biggest thing it's done so far is just be used in poison beside being a static remover as I just
X-rays were discovered by accident in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Roentgen was already an accomplished scientist with forty-eight published papers. He had a reputation among the scientific community as a dedicated scientist with precise experimental methods. Roentgen had been conducting experiments at the University of Wurzburg on the effect of cathode-rays on the luminescence of certain chemicals. Roentgen had placed a cathode-ray tube, which is a partially evacuated glass tube with metal electrodes at each end, in a black cardboard box in his darkened laboratory. He sent electricity through the cathodre-ray tube and noticed something strange his laboratory. He saw a flash of light
These women also had to learn how to fix the vehicle itself. When the women were trained they would go out to war to help the wounded soldiers. The name that was given to the x-ray vehicles was “Little Curies”. Without the use of her x-ray vehicles the war could have had a very different end for France
After doing some research over Marie and Pierre Curie I was able to put together this paper. This paper contains information about the life of Pierre and Marie Curie and their significance to physics and science in general. Pierre and Marie Curie are best known for their pioneering work in the study of radioactivity. The couple’s work led to their discovery of the elements radium and polonium (Dick).
Curie thus began studying uranium radiation and made it her doctoral thesis. With the aid of an electrometer built by Pierre, Marie measured the strength of the radiation emitted form uranium compounds and found it proportional to the uranium content, constant over a long period of time and influenced by external conditions. She detected a similar immutable radiation in the compounds of thorium. While checking these results, she made the discovery that uranium pitchblende and the mineral chalcolite emitted four times as much radiation as their uranium content. She realized that unknown elements, even more radioactive then uranium must be present.