1898

Polonium

• Pierre and Marie Curie
• analyzed pitchblende
• which they knew
• contained radioactive uranium.
• They removed the uranium,
• and separated the residue
• into salts of bismuth
• and salts of barium.
• From the bismuth fraction
• they isolated a substance
• that was four hundred times
• more radioactive than uranium.
• They named it after Poland,
• Marie’s native land, then under occupation,
• and their finding was questioned
• until well into the next century.

Atomic number 84

• Polonium is dangerous
• with no biological redeeming purpose.
• It occurs naturally as a step
• in the decay chain of uranium-238
• and is derived unnaturally from lead-bismuth coolants
• used in nuclear power plants in Russia.
• Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days
• too brief to use as a power source
• for planetary and interplanetary probes.

Different isotopes for different folks

• Dmitri Mendeleev
• predicted polonium
• and called it dvi-tellurium.
• Friedrich O. Giesel
• thought polonium was a radioactive form of bismuth
• and called it radiobismuth.
• William H. Bragg and Richard D. Kleeman
• found polonium-218
• and called it radium-A.
• Hans W. Geiger, Ernest Marsden, and Ernest Rutherford
• found polonium-216
• and called it thorium-A.
• Hans W. Geiger and Ernest Marsden
• found polonium-215
• and called it actinium-A.
• Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, and Kasimir Fajans
• found polonium-214
• and called it radium-C.
• Otto Hahn
• found polonium-212
• and called it thorium-C.
• Ernest Marsden and R. H. Wilson
• found polonium-211
• and called it actinium-C.
• Willy Marckwald
• found polonium-210
• and called it radiotellurium.