Malley M.C. Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science
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CONTENTS
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Radioactive Spas 152
Dangers in the Laboratory 156
11. New Industries 161
Early Industry 161
Soaring Demand and New Institutions 164
Paint that Glowed in the Dark 168
A New Poison 169
Fission, Bombs, and the Uranium Rush 172
Radioactivity and the Oil Industry 174
PART THR EE
BEYOND THE STORY
12. Radioactivity’s Prime Movers 179
Technology, Resources, and Professional
Changes 179
Individuals 180
Research Groups 181
Scienti c Ideals and Culture 182
Mentors and Models 183
Age, A itudes, and Ambition 186
Nationalism 187
13. Radioactivity and Timeless Questions:
e Quest for Understanding 192
Models and eories for Radioactivity 193
Pa erns in Radioactivity’s Development 196
Radioactivity and Ideas about Change 198
Radioactivity and Ideas about Ma er and Energy 200
CONTENTS
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Radioactivity and Ideas about Continuity
and Discontinuity 203
Eternal Conundrums 206
14. e Imaginative Appeal of a Discovery 208
Mythological and Romantic Dimensions
of Radioactivity 209
An Ongoing Task 213
Appendices
1. Glossary of Rays and Radiations 215
2. Family Trees for Radioactive Elements 217
3. Radioactivity’s Elusive Cause 223
4. Nobel Prize Winners Included in is Book 225
5. Radioactivity’s Web of In uence 227
6. Timeline 228
Notes 235
Selected Bibliography 245
Index of Persons 251
Index of Subjects 258
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MAP
Important European sites for the early
history of radioactivity ii
FIGURES
1-1 Rühmkor coil 5
1-2 Geissler tube 6
1-3 Cathode ray tube 9
1-4 Antoine-Henri Becquerel 13
2-1 Marie Curie 22
2-2 Gold leaf electroscope 23
2-3 Pierre Curie with the electroscope
he invented 25
2-4 Extraction of radium in the old shed 28
2-5 Friedrich Giesel 29
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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2-6 Spectroscope 30
2-7 e shed where radium was discovered 32
3-1 Ernest Rutherford 36
3-2 Julius Elster and Hans Geitel 39
3-3 Stefan Meyer 42
3-4 Egon Ri er von Schweidler 43
3-5 First graph showing exponential decay of
radioactivity 48
3-6 Frederick Soddy 50
3-7 Decay and recovery of thorium and
thorium X 53
5-1 Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution curves
for three temperatures 87
6-1 Periodic table, 1914 102
9-1 Rutherford’s laboratory, early 1920s 144
10-1 Apparatus used for radium therapy 149
10-2 Radium Town 155
11-1 Crystallization vats for purifying radium,
early 1920s 167
14-1 Radium water advertising brochure, c. 1905 212
APPENDICES
2 Family trees for radioactive elements 217
5 Radioactivity’s web of in uence 227
PREFACE
What would I recommend for her to read, a friend asked, for an
overview of the history of radioactivity? ough I could think of
many books and articles on di erent aspects of the eld, I real-
ized that nothing was available for my friend or other interested
nonspecialists who did not have the background, time, or inclina-
tion to piece together a full historical narrative from the available
materials.
I wrote this book to ll this need. It is a brief history of the
science of radioactivity based on years of my research with pub-
lished texts and manuscript materials supplemented with numer-
ous secondary sources. It provides a broad and accurate history
while avoiding excessive technical detail. is book is suitable for
specialists in related elds such as physics, chemistry, and history;
for nonspecialists wishing to know more about this remarkable
episode in modern science; and for readers interested in the world
at the turn of the twentieth century. Having spent years teaching
and developing curricula, I am especially interested in making the
history of science accessible for students and for teachers.
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PREFACE
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Radioactivity entered history at the onset of major transitions
in science, and itself propelled these changes. e eld’s brief tra-
jectory, spanning three decades, contrasts starkly with the interest
it generated and the far-reaching results it produced. e story of
radioactivity provides a window into the era’s science and its cul-
tural matrix. It illuminates the scienti c process and the ongoing
human quest for understanding.
Radioactivity has the dual a ractions of a fascinating his-
tory and dramatic consequences for humanity. e atomic bomb,
nuclear power, and changing relations of science to government
and the military are obvious results. ough important in their
own right, to concentrate on these outcomes would risk distorting
the history of radioactivity by viewing the past through the eyes
of the present. e radioactivity researchers worked in a very dif-
ferent environment from scientists several decades later. To them
radioactivity was an enigma, a discovery with many possibilities for
investigation, rather than a prelude to unknowable future develop-
ments. is work presents radioactivity’s history as it unfolded at
the time, a unique, exciting, and instructive story with a particular
historical context.
From its modest beginnings as a minor phenomenon, radio-
activity quickly developed into a major research eld. Mysterious
from the start, the new science was an intractable riddle until it
was absorbed into emerging areas of physics. I have focused on
this key feature of radioactivity, portraying the allure, challenge,
and excitement of a totally unanticipated and mysterious phenom-
enon and the e orts of scientists to comprehend it.
e book’s rst section seeks to capture the puzzlement and
suspense for radioactivity’s pioneers by leading the reader through
the twists and turns, surprises and dead ends which research-
ers experienced as they pursued their goal of understanding
PREFACE
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radioactivity. By following this story, the reader can be er appre-
ciate the processes involved in developing, testing, and revising
scienti c explanations.
Radioactivity’s history includes applications, methods and
instruments, and the institutional structures that supported the
new science. ese are reviewed in the second section of the book.
e history of the new science illustrates pa erns and themes
that have animated science and the universal human adventure.
e nal section of this book identi es and analyzes some factors
which informed radioactivity’s development and illustrate the
ongoing human search to comprehend the world.
I am grateful to the many persons and institutions who sup-
ported my rst researches on radioactivity many years ago, includ-
ing the University of California at Berkeley and John Heilbron,
who suggested radioactivity as a research topic and guided my
r s t e orts. My late parents, Raymond and Alice Malley, inspired
my interest in education. A remark by Jan Gillie led me to begin
this book, and my late brother John Malley kept me on track.
Tara Hornell made helpful suggestions on several chapters. David
Haase, Physics Department at North Carolina State University,
suggested improvements to Appendix 3.
I am especially indebted to Kristin Hornell for her detailed
reading and critique of the text and for numerous valuable sugges-
tions. Any errors remaining in this book are my responsibility.
I would like to thank editor Phyllis Cohen for her capable guid-
ance and prompt responsiveness throughout the acquisition and
editorial processes. e helpfulness of Hallie Stebbins, Jennifer
Bossert, Jennifer Kowing, Woody Gilmartin, and others at Oxford
University Press are much appreciated.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who com-
mented on my book proposal.
PREFACE
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I wish to acknowledge the institutions and individuals who
provided illustrations and permissions and those who gave tech-
nical assistance, including Sco Prouty and the Emilio Segrè
Visual Archives, American Institute of Physics; omas W.
Buchler, CEO, and Waltraud Grove of Buchler GmbH, Brunswick,
Germany; Adam Perkins, Don Manning, Ruth Long, and the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library; Bailey Dabney and
Randy Cowling, e Claremore Progress; Ma hias Röschner and
the Deutsches Museum; Rudolf Fricke, Wolfenbü el, Germany;
Nathalie Huche e, Natalie Pigéard, and the Musée Curie, Institut
Curie; Paul Hogrian and the Library of Congress; Dianna Evere ,
Oklahoma Historical Society; JoAnn Palmeri, Kerry Magruder,
and e History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma
Libraries; Professor C. M. R. Fowler and Ernest Rutherford’s fam-
ily; David N. Hall and e Frederick Soddy Trust; Regina Frey,
Chemistry Department, Washington University at St. Louis; Peter
Graf and the Zentralbibliothek für Physik in Vienna; Dennis and
Donna Grossman, James Hornell, and Earl W. Hall. Many thanks
to all.
I am extremely grateful to my husband, James Hornell, for
his constant support, encouragement, suggestions, photography,
computer troubleshooting, and general helpfulness throughout
the lengthy process of completing this book.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations are by the author.
INTRODUCTION
Radioactivity burst into the world without warning. No precur-
sors foreshadowed it, and nothing in nineteenth-century physics
could have predicted it. Barely noticed at rst, within a few years
radioactivity became a prime topic for researchers. For the public,
radioactivity transformed from a minor curiosity into a potential
font of miracles.
e 1896 discovery of invisible uranium rays dramatically
changed physics and chemistry as well as the lives of future gen-
erations. Fields as diverse as geology, archaeology, biology, medi-
cine, meteorology, philosophy, power generation, and warfare
were altered by the new ndings. Radioactivity revealed details of
the structure of ma er and provided tools for investigating it. It
revolutionized ideas about energy, eventually ushering in nuclear
physics and a new era.
Radioactivity furnished evidence for probability’s reign within
the atom, in uencing ideas about causality’s place in the universe.
It altered theories of the age of the earth and supplied new meth-
ods for dating artifacts. It inspired innovations ranging from new
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