Marie Curie’s radioactive notebooks (1900)
Two-time Nobel prizewinner in physics and chemistry Marie Curie and her husband Pierre kept detailed notebooks during their research into radium and polonium in the late 1800s. The notebooks are an invaluable resource for chemists and physicists, and given their excellent condition, they are fascinating books offering insight into the methods used by one of the era’s most famous scientists. The problem, however, is that the notebooks are dangerously radioactive.
When Curie died of aplastic amenia brought on by exposure to the chemicals she studied, the radioactive properties of these chemicals contaminated everything belonging to Curie with radium 226. The notebooks are stored in lead-lined boxes. Researchers who want to view them must sign a waiver stating they understand and accept the risk of coming into contact with the contaminated notebooks. They must also wear protective gear, since radium 226 has a half-life of roughly 1,600 years.
