If you visit the basements of the National Library of France (BnF) and you want to look at some of the bibliographic gems that are kept there, you will most likely be forced to respect a series of measures, such as wearing gloves or handling the books in perfectly controlled conditions. The objective is obvious: protect the volumes. From you, from excessive exposure to light, from degradation. Things change if what you want to read is one of the notebooks that Marie Curie scribbled in her laboratory. In that case it is you who they must protect.
Literally. The fact that there are dangerous publications may be a controversial statement that may or may not be shared, but in the case of the folios handwritten by the famous Franco-Polish scientist, it leaves little room for debate. Despite Madame Curie He died in 1934, almost 89 years ago, his notebooks continue to cause concern among archivists. and it is quite normal so be it.
When Marie Salomea and her husband, Peterinvestigated in their laboratory with uranium, little was known about the potential damage of radiation, so they did not apply the basic safety measures that govern any radiological task today. So things—supports the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)— “no wonder his workspace and notebooks became contaminated.”
Pierre and Marie Curie, in the laboratory, around 1904.
To avoid possible risks, the handwritten notebooks are kept in the basements of the National Library of France inside special boxes, made up of several layers of lead. Not only that. As detailed in 2021 by the BBC networkthe French institution requires researchers who want to handle the notebooks in person to first put on some protective suits specials and, of course, that they sign a document in which they exempt them from any responsibility.
Is such misgivings justified?
When reading requires a special suit
For their research, which led to the discovery of polonium and radium, the Curies accumulated, crushed and manipulated enormous quantities of minerals containing uranium in their laboratory. He knowledge about natural radioactivity It was very recent at the time and the couple, who contributed to their research, were unwittingly exposed to its harmful effects. Themselves and, of course, all the material they used. Including notebooks of notes.
To understand the conditions under which they worked, it is good review the notes by Marie, collected by Philipp Blom in ‘The years of vertigo: Europe, 1900-1914’:
“One of our joys was entering the workshop at night; everywhere we saw the faintly luminous silhouettes of the capsule bottles containing our products. It was a beautiful sight and always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like dim fairy lights.”
It was not strange, they say, that the pair of scientists carried flasks with polonium and radium in their coat pockets or kept them in their desk. Marie herself ended up dying in 1934 from a aplastic anemia which was probably caused by his frequent exposure to radium samples and polonium.
“Taking into account the half-life of 1,600 years of the radius and the sensitivity of current radiation detectors, it is also not surprising that this contamination is still detectable today,” comments the ACSH in an article dedicated to the topic. The experts, BBC specifiescalculate that given that on average radium atoms take about 15 centuries to disintegrate, it is not unreasonable to think that the notebooks should remain in their lead box during that period.
The National Library of France is in any case not the only one to preserve Curie’s notebooks. The Wellcome Collection It also has a volume, digitizedwith notes on experiments and radioactive substances and sketches. The volume dates from between 1899 and 1902 and was written in Paris.
To avoid scares in 2014 The Aurora firm examined the material and concluded that it was contaminated with radius-226. The ACSH states in any case that the volume “does not represent an appreciable risk.” Fortunately, the notebook can consult now from homeonline, or even downloaded in PDF.
The theme of “the contaminated notebooks” of Curie generate so much interest that it even has your own entrance on the website Marie-curie.eu, focused on the figure of the two-time Nobel Prize winner, and numerous articles have been written on the subject.
Notebooks are not the only ones in a similar situation. The BBC explains that the house south of Paris where Marie Curie worked until 1934 is also affected by the radiation levels generated during her experiments. The block has even earned the ironic nickname of “Chernobyl on the Seine”.
When he was buried in Paris Pantheoneven Marie Curie herself ended up in a lead sarcophagus almost an inch thick.
Image | Aurora
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