Chapter 24, Problem 104A

Interpretation Introduction

Interpretation:

The lives of Marie Curie and her daughter Irene Curie Joliot are to be described.

Concept introduction:

Marie Curie and her daughter Irene Curie Joliot were both famous chemists who made significant contribution in the field of radioactivity chemistry.

Explanation of Solution

Marie Curie won the Chemistry Nobel Prize for discovering the elements radium and polonium and the Nobel Prize in physics for the breakthrough research on radioactivity. Irene Curie Joliot won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of artificial radioactivity and her research on the transmutation of elements. Marie Curie has master’s degree in physics as well as mathematics. After her studies she got commission to study different steel types and their magnetic properties. Her daughter Irene Joliot Curie followed Marie Curie footsteps and won noble Prize in Chemistry in the year 1935.

There were very few female chemists at their time as scientific training to females was not a common practice at that time.