Others, in addition to Becquerel, were soon investigating the new phenomenon. In 1898 the Polish (later French) physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) showed that it was the uranium atom that was the source of the radiation, and that any compound containing the uranium atom would give off these penetrating rays.
Until then, uranium had not been of much interest to chemists. It was a comparatively rare metal that was first discovered in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817). It had no particular uses and remained an obscure element. As chemists learned to work out the atomic weights of the various elements, they found, however, that, of the elements then known, uranium had the highest atomic weight of all—238.
Once uranium was discovered to be an endless source of radiation, it gained interest that has risen ever since. Madame Curie gave the name “radioactivity” to this phenomenon of continuously giving off rays. Uranium was the first element found to be radioactive.
It did not remain alone, however. It was soon shown that thorium was also radioactive. Thorium, which had been discovered in 1829 by Berzelius, was made up of atoms that were the second most massive known at the time. Thorium’s atomic weight is 232.
But what was the mysterious radiation emitted by uranium and thorium?
Almost at once it was learned that whatever the radiation was, it was not uniform in properties. In 1899 Becquerel (and others) showed that, in the presence of a magnet, some of the radiation swerved in a particular direction. Later it was found that a portion of it swerved in the opposite direction. Still another part didn’t swerve at all but moved on in a straight line.
The conclusion was that uranium and thorium gave off three kinds of radiation. One carried a positive charge of electricity, one a negative charge, and one no charge at all. The New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) called the first two kinds of radiation “alpha rays” and “beta rays”, after the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. The third was soon called “gamma rays” after the third letter.
Ernest Rutherford
