Biography & contributions
Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867 – died on July o4, 1934. Curie was a Polish physicist and chemist, Nobel laureate. Curie coined the term radioactivity. She discovered polonium and radium radioactive elements. Curium periodic table element was named in honor of both Marie and Pierre Curie.She predicted that radiation come from inside of atom but not as a result of interaction between molecules.
Marie curie got number of awards and medals in the field of physics and chemistry. The medals she got includes first Nobel Prize in the field of physics in 1903, Davy medal from Royal society in the year of 1903, Matteucci Medal in the year of 1904, Elliott Cresson Medal in the year of 1909, second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year of 1911 and Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society in the year of 1921
Radioactivity
It is the method by which a nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting particles of ionizing radiation. The material which spontaneously emits radiation particles like alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays, is considered as radioactive. Radioactive decay rates are normally stated in terms of their half-lives.
Half-lives of radioactive elements are nothing but the time that it takes for one half of the atoms of that substance to disintegrate into another nuclear form. These can range from mere fractions of a second, to many billions of years.
Example
Actinium radioactive element half-live is
227Ac – 21.773 years
Antimony radioactive element half-live is
125Sb – 2.77 years
The different types of radioactivity lead to different decay paths which transmute the nuclei into other chemical elements. Radioactive decay has been put to use in the technique of radioisotopic labeling, which is used to track the passage of a chemical substance through a complex system.
Polonium isotopes
Polonium element has 33 isotopes. It starts from 186Po to 227Po.
Examples
188Po
189Po
190Po
191Po etc
Radium isotopes
Radium has 35 unstable isotopes. It starts from 201Ra to 235Ra
Examples
202Ra
203Ra
204Ra
205Ra etc
Curium isotopes
Curium element has 21 radioactive isotopes ranging from 232Cm to 252Cm
Examples
243Cm
244Cm
245Cm
246Cm etc
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