Marie Curie’s Radioactive Notebooks
The Glowing Pages of a Radioactive Journey
In the city of Paris, a unique testament to a remarkable scientific journey exists: the notebooks of Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Curie was a trailblazer in many respects, notably for her profound contributions to the understanding of radioactivity. However, her legacy is encapsulated in an extraordinary way through her notebooks.
Preserved within the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris is an extensive collection of Curie’s research notes, a tangible link to her historic exploration into radioactivity. Yet these are no ordinary relics of scientific discovery. They embody a startling characteristic: over a century after their inception, they continue to emit a radioactive glow. In her fervor to unravel the mysteries of radioactivity, Curie worked intimately with radioactive isotopes, most notably radium and polonium. These isotopes emit ionizing radiation as a part of their natural decay process. Curie’s intense and frequent interaction with such materials resulted in her notebooks absorbing considerable amounts of this radiation, to such an extent that they remain radioactive to this day. Anyone seeking to view these notebooks must don protective clothing and acknowledge the inherent risk in handling materials that still emit ionizing radiation.
