Over the course of just a few summer weeks, J. Crucially, the physicists suggest that the United States start working to create an atomic bomb before Germany can. In the letter, they argue that, with Hahn and Strassmann’s discoveries, a nuclear bomb is possible and that Germany may well be working to create one. The German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann theorize a process of uranium fission that will allow a chain reaction to occur.įrédéric Joliot, the son-in-law of Marie and Pierre Curie, provides experimental proof of Hahn and Strassmann’s theory and begins early experiments in building a nuclear reactor.Ī group of physicists, including Doctor Atomic’s Edward Teller, writes a letter to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This discovery will soon lead to experiments in splitting the nucleus, a crucial first step in the development of atomic fission. Physicist James Chadwick, working in Rutherford’s laboratory, discovers neutrons, uncharged particles that exist alongside protons in the nucleus. The chemist Ernest Rutherford identifies the structure of the atom: a cloud of electrons surrounding a very dense nucleus of protons. Unfortunately, both Marie and Pierre will suffer radiation poisoning as a result of their work.Īlbert Einstein publishes a paper arguing that matter can be converted to energy according to the now-famous formula E=mc 2 (the energy emitted by this conversion will be equal to the mass of the original matter multiplied by the speed of light squared). Further research with these elements will lead to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for Marie. For their work, the Curies are awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, which they share with Becquerel. ![]() Marie and Pierre Curie isolate two previously unknown elements: radium and polonium. This energy will come to be known as radiation. ![]() Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a German physicist, discovers X-rays, a high-frequency counterpart to the radio waves discovered by Hertz.ĭuring a series of experiments with X-rays emitted by the element uranium, French physicist Henri Becquerel discovers a new kind of energy emitted by uranium atoms. Heinrich Hertz demonstrates the existence of radio waves.
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