Chapter 12

Chapter 12

      Chapter 12 begins with Kean talking about how the periodic table is a representation of humanity, its spirit, and its shortcomings. He explains that the history of the elements is not only scientific, but also social. His first story of the chapter is that of the Curies. In the 1890s, Marie and Pierre Curie's science collaboration was exceptionally fruitful. Marie Curie was a refugee scientist from Poland who searched for better academic opportunity in France. They shared a Nobel Prize in 1903 for their work on radioactivity. They would later discover two new elements that were extremely radioactive: polonium and radium. She recieved a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1911. She did not share the second Nobel Prize with her husband because he had gotten ran over and died in 1906. Their daughter, Irene, was also a brilliant scientist, but her work with polonium would cause her to contract and die from Leukemia in 1956, twenty two years after her mother met the same fate.
      The second story is that of a friend of Irene's, György Hevesy. He is notable for developing radioactive tracers, to prove whether his landlord was serving the same food everyday. Hevesy would later hide two Nobel Prize medals in his lab by dissolving them and would later have them recast.
     Kean moves on to talk about two scientists named Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. Hahn was the chemist of the duo, whilst Meitner dealt with the physics of their work. Meitner would be consistently loyal to her partner, giving him credit when she believed he deserved it and even giving up her own credit to Hahn for the sake of the political turmoil publishing her own findings could cause. Hahn would recieve a sole Nobel Prize in 1944 and fail to speak up for his partner. Meitner would later be immortalized as element 109: meitnerium.
     I liked this chapter, it was very blunt and informative about social problems that have plagued science for the longest time. It spoke about some of the most important women to science and how undervalued some of them went, or the obstacles they faced. I also liked that the chapter started diving into radioactivity a bit more, it seems really interesting.
     I learned that occasionally scientists discover something and either don't realize they discovered it or do not believe in themselves enough to believe in themselves, and that that has caused some tension over who exactly discovered what. I would tell my bae that science is a tough field to work in when politics are so influential. Political missteps can ruin scientific discoveries.