Paris, France/parisF572
Previous | Home | NextNotice the bricked wall at the rear. This is the storeroom, where polonium and radium were discovered in 1898 ("The Shed" was wooden, not brick). The apparatus used to measure radioactivity is on the second table back, slightly right of center. The three components of their detection apparatus can be identified: (left to right) ionization chamber, electrometer, and piezeoelectric device. The Curies used different designs of their equipment throughout their researchers. The first element discovered was polonium, which they announced in July, 1898. Polonium was the radioactive fraction mixed with bismuth. The second element was radium, announced in December, 1898. Radium was the radioactive fraction mixed with barium.
