Beschreibung:

CURIE, Marie Sklodowska. Autograph manuscript, labaratory notes with mathematical calculations, [Paris, ca. 1925]. 1 page, 8 o, graph paper, integral blank taped to verso . With: JOLIOT-CURIE, Frédéric. Autograph letter signed ("F Joliot Curie"), authenticating Marie Curie's manuscript leaf, Paris, 16 December 1946. 1 page, 8 o, Institut de Radium stationery . A remarkable and RARE example of scientific notes and calculations written by Marie Curie during the course of her ongoing researches on radioactivity. These notes, as Curie's son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie states in his authenticating letter, were written in conjunction with a series of experiments, probably on gamma rays and the derivatives of thorium. The experiments appear to have taken place over a period of 30 days, and may have been designed to measure the rate of decay of thorium X and certain other radioactive elements. At the time these notes were written Curie was head of the physics and chemistry laboratories at the Institut de Radium, where she continued to pursue her own researches while supervising the work of the scientists under her direction; her main concern, as always, was "the radioactive elements themselves: discovering them, measuring them, possessing them both physically and intellectually" (Quinn, Marie Curie , p. 405). Joliot-Curie dated these notes circa 1925, probably on the basis of the heading "Effet Compton" (the Compton effect, a means of measuring and interpreting the wavelength change occuring when x-rays are scattered, was discovered by Arthur Compton in 1923), but also probably on the basis of personal knowledge, since he joined Curie's laboratory at the Institut de Radium at this time. In 1935 he and his wife Irène were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their joint discovery of artificial radioactivity. James, Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, pp. 217-22. Reid, Marie Curie , pp. 116, 277