Four Curie centennial elements
The four Curie elements provide us with an interesting tour of the bottom of the periodic table
In 1898 Pierre and Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and were jointly awarded, with Henri Becquerel, the 1903 Nobel prize in physics for their work on radioactivity. In 1911 Marie was also awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for the discovery of these elements. Bill Griffith outlines the history, atomic structure and chemistry of the four Curie elements.
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