Joliot-Curie Irene (photo below in the article) is the eldest daughter of the famous scientists Maria and Pierre Curie, who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935 for the discovery of artificial radioactivity with her husband. Starting her research career as a junior researcher at the Radium Institute in Paris, created by her parents, she soon changed her mother, becoming his supervisor. There she met her husband and lifelong scientific partner Frederic Joliot. As a rule, they signed the results of their research with a combination of their surnames.
Joliot-Curie Irene: Short Biography
Irene was born on 12.09.1897 in Paris in a family of Nobel Prize winners Maria and Pierre Curie. Her childhood was quite unusual - growing up took place in the company of brilliant scientists. Parents got married in 1895 and dedicated their lives to physics, conducting experiments with radioactivity in their laboratory. Marie Curie was on the verge of discovering radium when little Irene, or “her little queen,” as her mother called her daughter, was only a few months old.
The girl grew beyond her years, but was a shy child. She was very possessive of her mother, who was often busy with her experiments. When, after a long day in the laboratory, the Queen met her exhausted mother, demanding fruit, Marie turned around and went to the market to fulfill her daughter’s wish. After the untimely accidental death of her father Pierre in 1908, a great influence on Irene began to exert a grandfather on the side of his father Eugene Curie. He taught granddaughter botany and natural history when she spent the summer in the village. Curie Sr. was a kind of political radical and atheist, and it was he who helped shape the leftist mood of Irene and contempt for organized religion.
Alternative education
Curie's education was quite remarkable. Her mother made sure that Irene and her younger sister Eva-Denise (born in 1904) do physical and mental exercises daily. The girls had a governess, but because Madame Curie was not satisfied with the accessible schools, she organized a training cooperative in which the children of professors from the famous Paris Sorbonne came to the laboratory for lessons. Mother Irene taught physics, and her other famous colleagues taught mathematics, chemistry, languages and sculpture. Soon, Irene became the best student with excellent knowledge of physics and chemistry. Two years later, however, when she turned 14, the cooperative was curtailed, the girl entered a private school, Sevigne College, and soon received a certificate. She spent the summer on the beach or in the mountains, sometimes in the company of celebrities such as Albert Einstein and his son. Then Irene entered the Sorbonne to study as a nurse.
Front work
During World War I, Madame Curie went to the front, where she used new X-ray equipment to treat soldiers. The daughter soon learned to use the same equipment, worked with her mother, and later on her own. Irene, shy and rather anti-social in character, was calm and calm in the face of danger. At the age of 21, she became a mother's assistant at the Radium Institute. She learned to skillfully use the Wilson’s camera, a device that makes elementary particles visible thanks to a trail of water droplets that they leave along the trajectory of their movement.
The beginning of scientific work
In the early 1920s, after a winning tour in the United States with her mother and sister, Irene Curie began to contribute to the laboratory. Working with Fernand Holvek, the administrative director of the institute, she conducted several experiments with radiation, the results of which were published in 1921 in her first work. By 1925, she completed her doctoral dissertation on the alpha radiation of polonium, an element that her parents discovered. Many colleagues in the laboratory, including her future husband, believed that she looked like her father in her almost instinctive ability to use devices. Frederick was several years younger than Irene and had no experience in using scientific equipment. When asked to tell him about radioactivity, she began in a rather rude manner, but soon they began to make long outing trips. The couple married in 1926 and decided to use the combined surname Joliot-Curie in honor of her famous parents.
Fruitful collaboration
The Nobel story of Irene Joliot-Curie and her husband Frederic began with joint research. They both signed their scientific work even after Irene was appointed head of the laboratory in 1932. After reading about the experiments of German scientists Walter Bothe and Hans Becker, their attention focused on nuclear physics - a field of science that was still in its infancy. Only at the turn of the century did scientists find that atoms have a central nucleus consisting of positively charged protons. Outside are negatively charged electrons. Irene’s parents examined radioactivity, a phenomenon that occurs when the nuclei of certain elements emit particles or energy. The former are relatively large alpha particles resembling the nuclei of a helium atom with two positive charges. In their Nobel Prize-winning work, Curie Sr. found that some radioactive elements emit particles on a regular, predictable basis.
Nuclear fusion
In her laboratory, Irene Joliot-Curie had access to the largest amount of radioactive material in the world, namely polonium, discovered by her parents. This chemical element emits alpha particles, which Irene and Frederick used to bombard various substances. In 1933, they bombarded them with aluminum kernels. As a result, radioactive phosphorus was obtained. Aluminum, as a rule, has 13 protons, but when bombarded with alpha particles with two positive charges, the nucleus receives additional protons, forming phosphorus. The resulting chemical element was different from the natural one - it was its radioactive isotope.
Researchers also tested the alpha irradiation method on other materials, finding that when alpha particles collide with atoms, they turn them into another element with a large number of protons. Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie created artificial radioactivity. They reported this phenomenon to the Academy of Sciences in January 1934.
Nobel Prize
The discovery of Joliot-Curie was of great importance not only for pure science, but also for its many applications. In the 1930s, many radioactive isotopes were obtained that were used as markers in medical diagnostics, as well as in countless experiments. The success of the technique prompted other scientists to experiment with the release of nuclear energy.
It was a bitter moment for Irene Joliot-Curie. Being in indescribable delight, but the sick mother knew that her daughter was awaiting recognition, but she died in July of the same year from leukemia caused by long-term exposure to radiation. A few months later, Joliot-Curie found out about the Nobel Prize. Although they were nuclear physicists, the couple received a chemistry prize due to the consequences of their discoveries in this field.
In addition, Irene and Frederick became owners of many honorary titles and officers of the Legion of Honor. But all these awards practically did not affect them. Reading poetry, swimming, sailing, skiing and hiking were my favorite pastimes of Irene Joliot-Curie. The children of Helene and Pierre grew up, and she became interested in social movements and politics. Left-winged atheist, Irene spoke out in favor of women's suffrage. She was deputy minister in the government of the Popular Front of Leon Blum in 1936, and then was elected professor at the Sorbonne in 1937.
Atom fission
Continuing her work in the field of physics in the late 1930s, Irene Joliot-Curie conducted an experiment with the bombardment of uranium nuclei by neutrons. With her co-worker Pavel Savich, she showed that uranium can be split into other radioactive elements. Her fundamental experiment paved the way for another physicist, Otto Khan, who proved that neutron bombardment of uranium could divide it into two atoms of comparable mass. This phenomenon has become the basis for the practical application of atomic energy - for the generation of nuclear energy and the production of nuclear weapons.
At the beginning of World War II, Irene continued her studies in Paris, although her husband Frederick went underground. Both of them were part of the French resistance movement, and in 1944, Irene and her children left for Switzerland. After the war, she was appointed head of the Radium Institute, and also authorized for the French atomic project. She spent days in the laboratory and continued to lecture and make presentations on the topic of radioactivity, although her health was gradually deteriorating.
Irene Joliot-Curie: biography politics
Frederick, a member of the Communist Party since 1942, was removed from office by the head of the French Atomic Energy Commission. After that, the couple began to advocate the use of nuclear energy for peace. Irene was a member of the World Peace Council and made several trips to the Soviet Union. This was the height of the Cold War, and due to political activity, Irene was denied membership in the American Chemical Society, which she applied for in 1954. Her last contribution to physics was to help create a large particle accelerator and laboratory in Ors. south of Paris in 1955. Her health deteriorated, and on 17.03.56 Irene Joliot-Curie died, like her mother, from leukemia as a result of a large total dose of radiation.