ipl-logo

The Discovery Of Radioactive Elements In The 1900's

1946 Words8 Pages

The Discovery of Radioactive Elements Radiation is now known as very dangerous and unhealthy, imagine a time when mentioning radiation everyone thought of the healing properties and considered it a cure all. To understand why it was considered a cure all, in the 1900’s we must go to the very beginning when Uranium was discovered. The beginning of Radioactivity Uranium was discovered in an old silver mine called Joachimsthal located in the city of Jáchymov in the Czech Republic.The mine had been running since 1517 to the 1900’s and produced 554,44 tons of silver for their coins. To the silver miners Uranium was considered worthless and was given the name pesh blende or hard luck because when they found it there was no silver nearby. …show more content…

Marie Curie coined the term radioactivity from Henri Becquerel. Her experiments included isolating the uranium and found that it was not as radioactive when it was uranium, and there had to be other radioactive elements in the pitchblende. (a mix of ores) The discovery of more new elements, even got Marie’s husband excited and her husband Pierre put his own research aside to help Marie. By 1898 they had discovered two elements which were Polonium and Radium. She came up with the name Polonium from her home country of Poland. For radium since it was the most radioactive it got rad from the radiation. Pierre found that when he put the glass vial of radium on his skin it would turn his skin red. This would tell us that it is toxic or harmful to us now, but during the time heat was used for a lot of treatments. So it began to be used as a cure all. Radium would cure visible tumors and due to the suspected heat treatment of the element it was put into everyday use, but this was dangerous because it was in more things than just band aides or medical treatments.. It was put in everything, soon there was radium water, toothpaste, and even spas to fully bathe in radium. The reason that a lot of companies started to sell radium products was because of the price. In order to put it into perspective the price of gold at the time was only sixty-six …show more content…

It was more for the rich as it was advertised as bathe in radium. There was also very expensive makeup created called tho-radia marketed towards the rich for that glow. One of the ads that was run for radium water was a health advice ad named Here’s Health, it read “To keep that health you must keep Nature’s laws. They are simple and easy to keep; but if they are broken Nature exacts a heavy penalty from each and every one. Get plenty of sleep, exercise, and wholesome fun. Avoid overwork, all other excesses, eat fresh natural foods, breathe fresh air, and drink plenty of fresh , invigorating, natural radioactive water from the

Show More
Related
948 Words | 4 Pages

Even though it is very dangerous, he still wants to build a nuclear reactor. David would like to make a collection of all the radioactive elements. He also starts to research all of the incidents that have occurred with radioactive materials. This year we have learned about the elements and Physical Science. David does a lot with the elements, especially the radioactive elements.

Read More
1449 Words | 6 Pages

Paul Boyer, the author of By the Bomb’s Early Light, has an unusually high level of expertise on the subject of atomic bombs. He is an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is at the top of his field, and is a perfect candidate to write this book. Not only will he be an expert in the science of atomic bombs, but he will know the history of this kind of technology. Paul Boyer’s main idea in this book is more of a discussion of Nuclear Policy and a look back at the nuclear age.

Read More
678 Words | 3 Pages

The girls would also paint their fingernails, teeth, and face with the substance. according to the article, “The Radium Girls and the Generation that brushed its Teeth with Radioactive Toothpaste” on the cite http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/07/02/the-radium-girls-and-the-generation-that-brushed-its-teeth-with-radioactive-toothepaste/ it states, “At the dawn of the 1920s, an estimated total of 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. and Canada alone to paint watch faces after the initial success in developing a glowin-the-dark radioactive paint.” The watch that the girls were using was also used for the military. According to the article called ‘Radium Girls’, found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls it status, ‘... owners and the scientists familiar with the effects of radium carefully avoided any exposure to it themselves;...’ When the public and women started to get deathly ill and sick, they found out it was caused by the radiation for the paint.

Read More
375 Words | 2 Pages

Scientist continued to develop the world's knowledge of the atom. In 1896, Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity(Doc.1). Furthermore, in 1911, Ernest Rutherford discovered atoms were made of smaller particles and that they had a positively charged nucleus(Doc.1). Throughout decades, scientist have honed ,developed, and continued in the study of the science of the

Read More
952 Words | 4 Pages

Irene Joliot-Curie The name alone, Irene Joliot-Curie, holds weight in the world of chemistry. Her own accomplishments led her to achieve countless accolades that improved the lives of many others. This astonishing woman had earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, age 38, with her husband, Frédéric Joliot. Irene had a prestigious lineage, her parents being Marie and Pierre Curie, who share a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Read More
1314 Words | 6 Pages

Scientists found out that they could use the abundant source of uranium 238 and produce plutonium from it. To do this, they needed special nuclear reactors that could sustain the energy produced by experimenting with these radioactive elements. The Combined Policy Committee decided to proceed with the design and construction of a moderated heavy water nuclear reactor in Canada on April 13, 1944. This reactor was important to the further research conducted on producing plutonium efficiently and enriching uranium to a higher level, to have more explosive power. It allowed to experiment safely using heavy water to slow down chain reactions and it lead to new discoveries and plans of the project to the Americans and the British.

Read More
769 Words | 4 Pages

Although this chemical helped at the time, it ruined lives in the

Read More
1577 Words | 7 Pages

Leona Woods Marshall Libby was an American physicist that’s most famous for her work alongside Enrico Fermi on the Manhattan Project to create the first atomic reactor. Leona Woods was born in 1919 in La Grange, Illinois. In 1938, Leona graduated from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry at the age of 19. Leona was only 23 years old and in the book by Sanger, she was “the only women present when Enrico Fermi’s nuclear pile at the University of Chicago went critical and into the history books” (Sanger). Leona was one of the few females on the project and at this time it was probably very difficult for a woman to get accepted the way she did.

Read More
1236 Words | 5 Pages

The nuclear waste in the water and soil is the source of the high number of rare cancer mutations in the region, and the companies that were involved in the creation and storage of the waste should accept liability for their error. St. Louis possesses a concealed history with nuclear technology and radioactive wastes. At the beginning of the atomic age, dating back to the 1940’s, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works began producing uranium oxide for usage in chemical reactions, which would eventually lead to the invention of atomic bombs. In 1962, the Uranium Division of Mallinckrodt sent out a newsletter that read, “Mallinckrodt’s little uranium processing plant was the sole source of supply of purified uranium dioxide to the Manhattan project until well into 1943” (“Uranium...”). An enormous amount, roughly an entire ton of uranium, was produced on a daily basis (Degarmo).

Read More
509 Words | 3 Pages

Mercury was a common ingredient that they used yet upon ingesting it, one would succumb to fever, bloody vomiting, burning pains, muscle tremors, and distorted senses, all of which were not what one

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

In order for research to take place there, a town was built from the farmland, with forty-five thousand workers needing the site to be a home. After the town was complete in the fall of 1942 (8), work on the Manhattan Project began, and it wasn’t before long that the X-10 Graphite Reactor was built from the models created at the University of Chicago (6). Studies on the separation of uranium isotopes, thermal diffusions, and how to enrich uranium-235 were all conducted at Oak Ridge, with the enrichment of plutonium and uranium perhaps being the most notable accomplishments (6). Incredibly, all of this was kept secret from the outside world. Citizens were urged to keep quite on their research.

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

The knowledge of nuclear science affected the American citizens in the 1950 's and 60 's, by influencing public entertainment, causing the creation of NASA, and forcing people to live in

Read More
1290 Words | 6 Pages

In 1911, scientist Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of the atom. In 1934, Enrico Fermi irradiated uranium with neutrons, the uranium absorbed one neutron only to eject two, creating a chain reaction with surrounding uranium atoms, creating a nuclear chain reaction, and the first nuclear fission. In 1939, Albert Einstein writes to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning him of the use of uranium in a weapon. On Dec. 6, 1941 Roosevelt authorizes the Manhattan Engineering District, which will become the Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, the first nuclear bomb, called the Trinity Test, is detonated at Alamogordo, NM (Nuclear Weapons

Read More
626 Words | 3 Pages

In 1939, the scientific community, specifically German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom (The Manhattan Project” 2015). America realized that Adolf Hitler’s Germany obtained a massive amount of scientific talent. With their access had necessary raw materials and knowledge of the splitting of the uranium atom, they had the industrial capacity to produce an atomic bomb(“Manhattan Project”2014). The atomic bomb would eventually become the turning point of weaponry during World War II. On October 11, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein about the splitting of the uranium atom which could be beneficial in developing weapons for America during World War II.

Read More
1386 Words | 6 Pages

Henrietta’s tumor was treated with radium, which was a white radioactive metal that glows blue. It destroys any cells that it comes into contact with and can burn the skin off a person’s body at high doses. Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. dilated Henrietta’s cervix and prepared to treat her tumor, but first shaved off a piece of tissue from her tumor and a piece from her healthy cervical tissue. After the procedure was finished, a resident took the samples to Gey’s

Read More

More about The Discovery Of Radioactive Elements In The 1900's

Related Topics

Open Document