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Descriptive Information

Title

The Radioactivity of Uranium

Description

Following the foundational work of Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy derived the empirical and mathematical principles of radioactivity in their seminal paper “The Radioactivity of Uranium” (Philosophical Magazine, 1903). The figure displayed here demonstrates how the “parent” element uranium is transformed into the unknown “daughter” element “uranium-x” (since identified as 234Th). Both curves are exponential and perfectly mirror one another, which reveals that the process of radioactive transformation occurs at a constant rate. From these measurements, Rutherford and Soddy described the fundamental principles of the radioactive decay constant, half-life, and parent-daughter ratios. Because the decay rate for a given pair of parent and daughter elements was a universal constant, the measurement of the ratio between parent and daughter in any mineral would reveal the age of that mineral.

Call Number (click link to view in library catalog)

505 LE

See Also

Full Text Available at HathiTrust

Authors

Rutherford, Ernest, and Frederick Soddy

Date

1903

From the Exhibit

In Search of Lost Time: Radioactivity and the Science of Geochronology

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Location

London

Language

English

Rights

This item was originally published in Philosophical Magazine. Intellectual property rights, including copyright, may reside with the materials' creator(s) or their heirs.

Type

Text

Medium

Article

Bibliographic Citation

Rutherford, Ernest, and Frederick Soddy. “The Radioactivity of Uranium”. Philosophical Magazine 6 (1903): 441-445.