An army of
investigators turned into the new field, and sought to penetrate
the deep abyss that had almost suddenly disclosed itself. The
quickening of astronomy by Galilei, or of zoology by Darwin, was
slight in comparison with the stirring of our physical world by
these increasing discoveries. And in 1898 M. and Mme. Curie made
the further discovery which, in the popular mind, obliterated all
the earlier achievements. They succeeded in isolating the new
element, radium, which exhibits the actual process of an atom
parting with its minute constituents.
The story of radium is so recent that a few lines will suffice to
recall as much as is needed for the purpose of this chapter. In
their study of the emanations from uranium compounds the Curies
were led to isolate the various elements of the compounds until
they discovered that the discharge was predominantly due to one
specific element, radium. Radium is itself probably a product of
the disintegration of uranium, the heaviest of known metals, with
an atomic weight some 240 times greater than that of hydrogen.
But this massive atom of uranium has a life that is computed in
thousands of millions of years.
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