Recent research on radioactivity

RECENT RESEARCH ON RADIOACTIVITY.

By P. CURIE.

[Reprinted from the American Chemical Journal, Vol. XXXI, No. 4. April, 1904.]

RECENT RESEARCH ON RADIOACTIVITY.[1]

By P. Curie.

Since the discovery of strongly radioactive substances, research on radioactivity has been greatly developed. I propose in this article to give an account of the actual state of our knowledge relative to this subject, laying particular stress on the most recent work.[2]

[1]Translated from an article that appeared in Jour. d. Chim. Phys., I, 409 (1903) edited by Philippe A. Guye, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Geneva. See THIS JOURNAL, 31, 298 (1904).

[2]For more complete details of work done previous to May, 1903, see the thesis of Mme. Curie. It appeared in Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. in 1903 and 1904.

I. Radioactive Substances.

Becquerel Rays. Uranium and Thorium.—We call radioactive such substances as are capable of emitting spontaneously and continuously certain rays known as Becquerel rays. These rays act upon the photographic plate; they render the gases through which they pass conductors of electricity; they can pass through black paper and metals. The Becquerel rays cannot be reflected, refracted or polarized.

In 1896 Becquerel discovered that uranium and its compounds emit these new rays continuously. Schmidt and Mme. Curie then found almost simultaneously that thorium compounds are also radioactive. The radiations emitted by thorium compounds are comparable in intensity with those from the compounds of uranium. Radioactivity is an atomic property that accompanies the atoms of uranium and thorium wherever they are found; in a compound or a mixture its intensity is proportional to the amount of the metal present.

New Radioactive Substances.—Mme. Curie, in 1898, tried to learn whether there were among the elements then known any others possessing radioactivity; she could not find a single substance giving any considerable radiation, and concluded that the radioactive properties of the elements are at least 100 times more feeble than those of uranium and thorium. She found, on the other hand, that certain minerals containing uranium (pitchblende, chalcolite, and carnotite) are more active than metallic uranium; the activity of these minerals could not, then, be due solely to uranium or to other known elements. This discovery was fertile with new results. Mme. Curie and I showed, in an investigation carried on together, that pitchblende contains new radioactive substances, and we supposed that these substances contained new chemical elements.

There are known with certainty three new strongly radioactive substances: polonium, which was found in the bismuth obtained from the uranium minerals; radium, found with barium from the same source, and actinium, which was discovered by Debierne among the rare earths extracted from the same minerals. These three substances are present only in infinitesimal quantities in the uranium minerals, and all three possess a radioactivity about a million times greater than that of uranium or thorium.

Recently Giesel and Hofmann announced the presence of a fourth strongly radioactive substance in the uranium minerals, which had properties closely resembling those of lead; from the publications that have appeared up to this time I have not been able to form an opinion as to the nature of this substance.

It may be asked whether radioactivity is a general property of matter. This question cannot be regarded as actually settled. The investigations of Mme. Curie have proved that the different known substances do not possess an atomic radioactivity one-hundredth as great as that of uranium or thorium. On the other hand, certain chemical reactions may cause the formation of ions, conductors of electricity, without the active substance giving any evidence of atomic radioactivity. Thus white phosphorus by its oxidation renders the surrounding air a conductor of electricity, while red phosphorus and the phosphates are not at all radioactive.

Some old experiments by Russell, Colson and Tengyel showed that certain substances act upon the photographic plate at a distance.