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The Discovery of Artificial Radioactivity

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Abstract

We reconstruct Frédéric Joliot and Irène Curie’s discovery of artificial radioactivity in January 1934 based in part on documents preserved in the Joliot–Curie Archives in Paris, France. We argue that their discovery followed from the convergence of two parallel lines of research, on the neutron and on the positron, that were focused on a well-defined experimental problem, the nuclear transmutation of aluminum and other light elements. We suggest that a key role was played by a suggestion that Francis Perrin made at the seventh Solvay Conference at the end of October 1933, that the alpha-particle bombardment of aluminum produces an intermediate unstable isotope of phosphorus, which then decays by positron emission. We also suggest that a further idea that Perrin published in December 1933, and the pioneering theory of beta decay that Enrico Fermi also first published in December 1933, established a new theoretical framework that stimulated Joliot to resume the researches that he and Curie had interrupted after the Solvay Conference, now for the first time using a Geiger-Müller counter to detect the positrons emitted when he bombarded aluminum with polonium alpha particles.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the staffs of the Archives Irène Curie et Frédéric Joliot–Curie, the Churchill College Archives, and the Nobel Archives for permission to quote from their materials, the staff of the Archives Irène Curie et Frédéric Joliot–Curie for permission to reproduce figures 5, 7, 8, and 10, and Dr. Marion Kazemi of the Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck Gesellschaft for permission to reproduce figure 6. Finally, we thank Roger H. Stuewer for his meticulous and knowledgeable editorial work on our paper.

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  1. Department of Physics, National Institute of Nuclear Physics Section of Rome 1, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 2, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Francesco Guerra

  2. Department of Physics, University of Genoa, Via Dodecaneso, 33, 16146, Genoa, Italy

    Matteo Leone & Nadia Robotti

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  1. Francesco Guerra
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  2. Matteo Leone
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Correspondence to Matteo Leone.

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Francesco Guerra is Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Department of Physics of the Sapienza University of Rome; his main fields of research are quantum-field theory, statistical mechanics of complex systems, and history of nuclear physics and quantum-field theory. Matteo Leone is contract researcher in the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa; his main fields of research are the history of spectroscopy, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and scientific instruments. Nadia Robotti is Professor of History of Physics in the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa; her main fields of research are the history of atomic physics, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and scientific instruments.

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Guerra, F., Leone, M. & Robotti, N. The Discovery of Artificial Radioactivity. Phys. Perspect. 14, 33–58 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-011-0064-7

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