Curium Research Paper

Uranium was discovered in 1789, by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German chemist. He first believed the substance he got from pitchblende was pure uranium, but it was actually

In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced they had discovered a new element that “behaved like pure barium” to the world. They named it radium for its radioactive properties. The Curies would have to prove their discovery with copious amounts of radium, and to do so needed to extract it on its own. They used the ore of pitchblende, which was high in supply in the Joachimsthal mine in Bohemia, to experiment with extracting the radium (Fröman, 2014). Marie used the process of boiling the pitchblende in acid used for cleaning and bleaching, which then left her with radium mixed with other metals. She then boiled what was left with a different solution and washed it, which cleared it of some of the metals (McClafferty, 2006). Marie boiled the remaining compound in another solution, washed it with water, and treated it with corrosive agents. These extensive processes allowed Marie to separate the metals from the radium sulfate and barium sulfate. To turn the sulfates into radium salt, she boiled them again.

|1. Copper metal (penny) at the start |Tarnished, worn out, brownish, copper-colored, fine solid. |

who said “All this colonial business is a sham, but we need it for elections”

Did you know that there are multiple types of uranium? The team of scientists who worked on the first atomic bomb used the “advanced” type U 235 instead of U 238. Many scientists worked on the bomb, but not many of them received credit. The project was called “Manhattan Project” which was based in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The people who helped with the Manhattan Project explored uranium, in result they exchanged many lives to win a war.

Imagine, your son comes home from a football practice and tells you his head hurts. You don’t think anything of it so you just give him some headache medicine and tell him to go to bed. He wakes up the next morning in excruciating pain and can barely even function with how bad it is. Your son has received a concussion from a teammate during practice because they haven’t learned the proper tackling techniques. All could have been avoided if you didn’t allow him to play until he and his body were ready for it. Young kids should not be playing contact football at too young of an age because, they are not fully developed, the kids won’t be held back in any way and the safety measures taken in youth football are just simply

Early 1939, the scientist of the world learned that German scientist had discovered a way to spit a uranium atom, created

     Copper is one of the earliest elements known to man. Because of its distinct red color, Copper is very easily identified. In the ancient times, copper could be found lying in the ground in its unattached state without interaction to other substances. Copper and its compounds have many uses in today’s society.

The pioneering work of Becquerel in 1896 (the discovery of uranium), and the Curies (who subsequently discovered radium and polonium and the energy and heat given off by these new elements which they called radioactivity) led to the remarkable work of Ernest Rutherford. He was a physicist, whose experiments showed that some heavier elements spontaneously changed or decayed into lighter elements (unstable 'parent' elements giving off protons and neutrons to form a 'daughter' element) through the process of radioactivity. He discovered that radioactive materials decay at a very predictable rate, and that lead was the final decay product of uranium. Using Rutherford's ideas, Bertram Boltwood pioneered a method of radiometric dating in 1907. He hypothesized that since he knew how long it takes uranium to break down, he could measure the proportions of lead in uranium ores, and use his calculations to date how long those ores had existed,

It was first developed in the 1940s, and during the Second World War to 1945 research initially focussed on producing bombs which released great energy from the atoms of particular isotopes of either uranium or plutonium.

Named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron and contributor to the Manhattan Project. Rutherfordium was named for Ernest Rutherford, Nobel Prize winning physicist who developed the concept of half-life, and first to name alpha and beta particles. Discovered in 1964. Seaborgium was discovered in 1974. And named after Glenn T. Seaborg, Nobel prize winning chemist who was the first to arrange the actinide series. Bohrium was discovered in 1981. And is named after Danish physicist Niels Bohr. He is known as the father of quantum physics. He is also a Nobel Prize winner. Meitnerium was Named after Lise Meitner and discovered in 1982, Meitnerium is the only element named solely after a woman. Curium officially shares the name with Pierre Curie, Marie's husband. Roentgenium was discovered in 1994.And named after Wilhelm Rontgen, discoverer of x-rays. Copernicium was discovered in 1996 and named for Nicolaus Copernicus, introduced the notion of a heliocentric model of the universe. Flerovium was discovered in 1999, the name Flerovium honors Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov who was partially responsible for the discovery of spontaneous fission and initiating the nuclear program of the Soviet

With her experiments, she became the first woman in France to get a doctorate. Curie decided to continue Henri Becquerel’s experiments with X-rays. She came up with the groundbreaking idea that the rays were actually an atomic property. The paper she wrote reporting her discoveries had to be presented through her professor because women weren’t allowed to address the Academy of Sciences. With this, she continued her work to find new elements. First, she found polonium, which is named for her home country, and then she discovered radium. Pierre and Marie’s greatest work was done in a run-down shed. They worked from 1898 to 1902. The Curies could have made a fortune if they patented their process of extracting and refining radium, but they decided share their knowledge with the world.

For our science assessment we had the task to research about a metal of our choice. Since I am really into computers, I chose copper. A metal used in all kinds of wires, cpu’s and other stuff without a computer wouldn’t work. This fits really well into what we have to do for the second part, describe how this metal has helped human society.

     In July of 1898, Marie and Pierre Cure discovered Polonium. They named the element after Marie's birth country, Poland. Chemically, this new element was very similar to bismuth, but it contained radioactivity, so it must be new. In December of 1898, the Curie's discovered yet another element. They named this one radium, from the Latin word for ray. The two new elements had completely different chemical properties, but they both had very strong radioactivity.

Curie thus began studying uranium radiation and made it her doctoral thesis. With the aid of an electrometer built by Pierre, Marie measured the strength of the radiation emitted form uranium compounds and found it proportional to the uranium content, constant over a long period of time and influenced by external conditions. She detected a similar immutable radiation in the compounds of thorium. While checking these results, she made the discovery that uranium pitchblende and the mineral chalcolite emitted four times as much radiation as their uranium content. She realized that unknown elements, even more radioactive then uranium must be present.