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Radioactivity: The First Puzzles

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Unravelling the Mystery of the Atomic Nucleus

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Abstract

Henri Becquerel, while searching for X-rays, discovers a radiation emitted by uranium. The scientific community shows no interest in such a weak and incomprehensible phenomenon with no practical applications.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    That is to say, within a time delay of the order of one hundred millionth of a second.

  2. 2.

    The laps of time can vary from a thousandth of a second to several thousand seconds.

  3. 3.

    Emphasized by the author.

  4. 4.

    Little encyclopædia of practical life.

  5. 5.

    The society for the encouragement of national industry.

  6. 6.

    Equivalent to the GCE both O and A levels.

  7. 7.

    The municipal school of industrial physics and chemistry.

  8. 8.

    That is, a hundred thousandth of a micro-ampere, a hundredth of a nano-ampere, or 10 pA.

  9. 9.

    Rutherford preferred to use the term “excited” radioactivity rather than the term “induced” radioactivity. He will later explain [76] that the latter could suggest that the phenomenon is due to the action of passing through the air, whereas he shows that the “excited” radioactivity is transported by positively charged particles. It is, however, the same phenomenon which Pierre and Marie Curie call “induced” radioactivity.

  10. 10.

    See page 21.

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Fernandez, B. (2013). Radioactivity: The First Puzzles. In: Unravelling the Mystery of the Atomic Nucleus. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4181-6_1

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