Radioactivity

Marjorie C. Malley

As sub title says “A History of a Mysterious Science”, this book is combination of history and science between late 19th century and the beginning of 20th century.
After discovery of X ray by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895 and uranium ray or Becquerel ray by Antoine-Henri Becquerel in 1896, mystery has not been resolved until 1907 the year Rutherford and Geiger found that the alpha particles were positively charged atoms of helium.
The word “radio-activity” itself was named in 1898 by Curies who found polonium and radium.
Due to lack of knowledge or understanding, radio-activity was used in wide variety of areas from fertilizer to tooth paste and cosmetics. On the other hand, researchers who worked in this area suffered cancer or blood diseases. Giesel, Hönigschmid, Egon von Schweidler, André Debierne and George von Hevesy all died of cancer. Marie Curie and her daughter Iréne died from blood diseases.
After about one hundred years of its discovery, radio-activity is still hard to handle for human beings as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi disasters.