In Paris, not far from the Panthéon, is a crooked little byway once called the Rue des Postes. From that byway last week came two words in a combination new to physicists the world over: artificial radioactivity.
Science has long been aware of the little street once called the Rue des Postes. Its present name is the Rue Pierre-Curie. In a shabby wooden building at its end, 36 years ago, Mme Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre discovered radium.
At that time their daughter Irene was in swaddling clothes. Eight years later...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
