Debierne was principally a radiochemist; his first triumph came in
1900 with the discovery of a new radioactive element, actinium, which he isolated while working with
pitchblende. In 1905 he went on to show that actinium, like radium, formed helium. This was of some significance in helping
Ernest Rutherford to appreciate that some radioactive elements decay by emitting
an alpha particle (or, as it turned out to be, the nucleus of a helium atom). In 1910, in collaboration with Marie Curie, he isolated pure metallic radium. |
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