Rutherford showed that such radioactive elements had half-lives – an indication of the time it took for them to decay – leading to the radiometric dating used today in fields from geology to archaeology. With supplies of radioactive material from the Curies, for example, the physicist Ernest Rutherford developed a modern alchemy – proposing that some unstable elements naturally transmute into others, emitting radiation as they go. Her work kicked off a series of tumultuous discoveries and launched the field of atomic science. The idea of an unseen subatomic world from which radioactivity - as Skłodowska-Curie named it - came, was seized on by others. ‘All medicine that relies on radioactivity – on irradiating people – goes back to Marie Curie.’ Dr Spencer Weart, physics historian, US This convinced them that the radiation was coming not from any peripheral chemistry arising from molecular interactions but from deep within the atom – a startling idea because the atom was supposed to be the basic, indestructible building block of any element. Pierre had invented instruments that could measure radiation and with these the Curies demonstrated that, no matter what form the uranium was in, it continued to radiate with an intensity proportional to the amount of uranium in the sample. Skłodowska-Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, were fascinated by uranium salts which had been shown by their contemporary, Henri Becquerel, to naturally emit X-rays. But her legacy was amplified by her activities as a humanitarian, an ambassador for science, and, not least, a pioneer for women in science. She opened new fields in medicine, engineering and science. Why does Skłodowska-Curie capture the imagination so? She was a double Nobel Prize winner and one of only 48 women ever to win a Nobel Prize. Her image persists, too: most commonly, of a severely dressed lady stirring a cauldron of pitchblende in a draughty Parisian shed, haunted by the faint green glow of the radioactivity that was ultimately to kill her. It is more than 80 years since Skłodowska-Curie’s death, but the name of the world’s most famous woman physicist is ubiquitous, adorning research institutes, hospitals, schools, prizes, charities and even an element.
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