POLONIUM
Every
now and then I get to see a science fiction film. This time it was called “Transcendence” with
Johnny Depp, (Dr. Will Caster, a scientist and his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall)
who work with a team to create a sentient computer including artificial intelligence. The story unfolds with Dr. Caster being shot
with a polonium laced bullet. Of course, the film continues to extend into a
scientific fantasy, but it was the word polonium that perked my curiosity.
I
did some research and found that polonium is a chemical element with the symbol
Po and the atomic number 84,
discovered 1898 by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie. It was named Marie Curie’s native land of
Poland (Latin: Polonia). Poland at that
time was under Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian partition. It was Curie’s hope that naming the element
after her native land would give it publicity to becoming an independent
country.
Marie
had left Poland and went to Paris where she eventually continued her studies in
physics and chemistry and completed advanced degrees at the University of
Paris. Her great contributions in science emerged in collaboration with Pierre
when they investigated the cause of pitchblende radioactivity. Marie decided to investigate uranium rays and
in addition to the discovery of polonium, eventually isolated radium. The naming of radium dates back to about
1899 from the French word in Modern Latin from radius (ray).
The
first experiments in the biological properties of radium began in France and
encouraged a new branch of medical science radiumtherapy (in France called
Curietherapy). Later it developed in
other countries so that today we have its use in treating many diseases,
particularly cancer. Interesting to
note, polonium has been produced in industry and was part of the Manhattan
Project’s Dayton Project during World War ll as a crucial part of the
implosion-type nuclear weapon design in 1945.
Marie
Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win two
Nobel Prizes in two sciences, physics and chemistry, with a total of seven
outstanding awards.
There
are a number of biographies devoted to her as well as movie films depicting her
life. She is an icon in scientific
history.
