Madame Curie. "Modern Theories of Electricity and Matter".
Offprint from Smithsonian Report for 1906, pp 103-115. Original wrappers. About a fine copy, really; the text is largely unopened and untrimmed (which accounts for that bit of paper on the outside of the wrapper) $200
From the Curie paper:
"Looking at it in this light we are led to consider every atom as a complicated structure and this supposition is rendered probable by the complexity of the emission spectra which characterize the different atoms. We have thus a conception sufficiently exact of the atoms of negative electricity It is not the same for positive electricity for a great dissimilarity appears to exist between the two electricities. Positive electricity appears always to be found in connection with material atoms and we have no reason thus far to believe that they can be separated. According to the theory which best accounts for the phenomena of radioactivity a certain proportion of the atoms of a radioactive body is transformed in a given time with the production of atoms of less atomic weight and in some cases with the expulsion of electrons . This is a theory of the transmutation of elements but differs from the dreams of the alchemists in that we declare ourselves for the present at least unable to induce or influence the transmutation."
Comments