Madame Curie

In December 1898, based on a large number of experimental facts, the Curies announced that they had discovered a second radioactive element, which was more radioactive than Polonium, and they named this new element "radium". However, since there were no samples of Polonium and radium, nor the atomic weights of Polonium and radium, few people in the scientific community at that time were willing to believe their shocking new discovery.

The Curies were determined to extract samples of polonium and radium, no matter what the cost, on the one hand to confirm their existence, and on the other hand to make themselves more sure.

The Curies were a pair of intellectuals with considerable financial constraints and they could not afford the high cost of purchasing pitchblende. But they were not intimidated by the "roadblock" in front of them. They almost tried all kinds of methods. After countless twists and turns, the Austrian government formally decided to donate a ton of residual slag to the Curies first, and promised that if they needed a large amount of slag in the future, they could be supplied to them under the most favorable conditions. Mrs. Curie immediately devoted herself to the heavy extraction work. She put more than 20 kilograms of waste slag into a smelting pot to heat and melt it, and used a thick iron bar to stir the boiling slag for several hours without interruption. The liquid, and then extracted trace amounts of substances containing only one millionth of substance.

From 1898 to 1902, after countless extractions and processing nearly a ton of ore residue, 0.1 gram of radium salt was finally obtained, and its atomic weight was determined to be 226.

The discovery of radium caused a real revolution in the scientific community. In 1903, the Curies both won the Nobel Prize in Physics. This great success of Mrs. Curie is by no means easy to achieve. It embodies a lot of sweat and tears from the Curie couple. It is completely the crystallization of the joint efforts of the Curie couple.