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THE DISCOVERIES

19 July 1898

My former research had revealed that two uranium ores, cholcolite and pitchblende, are much more radioactive than pure uranium itself. Pierre was very intrigued by my work so he joined me as well. He put aside his research on crystals to help me. We worked as a team, taking on specific scientific tasks. But neither of us could have imagined the outcomes of our research. Today we published our conclusion. The bismuth fraction contains a new element. It almost exactly acts like bismuth chemically but it is radioactive so it must be something new. We named it “polonium” in honor of the country of my birth. We are both very proud and happy today. In science, making a discovery is the biggest reward you can get. However, getting to this point wasn’t easy. Pitchblende is a highly complex mineral because it is made out of nearly thirty elements. We had to use a new method of chemical analysis to isolate the unknown substances. We employed some standard chemical procedures to separate these substances. We used the Curie electrometer, which was founded by Pierre and his brother almost a decade ago, to identify the most radioactive fractions. It was hard work but it paid off.

19 December 1898

It hasn’t been a long time since we made our first publication about the discovery of polonium. Today, we explained our new discovery which is another new element that we named radium from the Latin word ray. Discovering two elements in a year is not something every scientist can do. We are both extremely proud of our achievements as we believe we deserved this success. None if this was easy to do, especially when we didn’t have adequate work space or most of the equipments we needed. We had to work in a miserable old shed because our school’s storeroom did not provide us the things we needed. The shed’s glass roof didn’t afford complete shelter against rain so we always got wet when it rained. The heat in the shed was suffocating in the summer and the cold of winter was only lessened by an iron stove. All we had in the shed were some old pine-wood tables with gas burners and furnaces. With this lack of equipment we started our exhausting work. But in this shed we achieved our biggest success so far. I think we are close to reaching one of the highest goals a scientist can hope to achieve which is placing new elements in the Periodic Table. The future excites me.

15 December 1904

It has been a year since my husband and I were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of radioactivity and new radioactive elements. Not surprisingly, the award has brought many changes in our lives. There were many benefits of the award however there were some downsides as well. The benefits include financial support, me getting the title “chief of laboratory” and a university salary and increased publicity of our work. But the last benefit has also become a downside. We haven’t had any peace since we got the award. Visitors and demands for lectures and articles interrupts us every day. Neither of us is used to working with constant interruptions. We are now prey to photographers and journalists. Not even Irene is safe from the prying eyes. Pierre thinks all these interruptions destroy his productivity. I might have to agree with him on this. I have explained earlier how indispensable is our freedom from external distraction in order to maintain our scientific activity and our family life. Although, Pierre thinks it is impossible to balance the attention we put into our family and scientific research; I have never thought that there is such thing as impossible. However, our second daughter Eve was born about a week ago which made me realize Pierre may be right. Sadly, I have to take some time off from my professional commitments in order to look after Eve.