"The voice-over on this film is taken from the biography of "PIERRE CURIE"" "written by MARIE CURIE." "My name is Marie Sklodowska." "I was born in Warsaw and came to Paris to study science." "In 1895, when I was still a student," "I married a great scientist, Pierre Curie." "In 1897 I decided to do a PhD." "Pierre Curie informed me of a strange phenomenon which Professor Becquerel had told him about." "In his laboratory, Becquerel made the following observation." "A compound of uranium, placed on a photographic plate surrounded by black paper, was exposed to sunlight." "It emitted uranium rays which penetrated the black paper and revealed an image on the photographic plate." "These rays also had the property of discharging an electroscope." "Becquerel left a compound of uranium in a drawer for a few days." "It was placed on top of a medal which in turn was placed on a photographic plate." "He then developed this plate." "He noticed that it also revealed an image, this time of the outline of the medal." "This effect had not been caused by prior exposure to sunlight, so there was a question mark over the source of the energy emitted by the uranium compound in the form of radiation." "We felt it would be interesting to study this phenomenon, so I decided to undertake some research into it." "The head of the school of physics granted Pierre Curie permission to use a glass-fronted studio containing the necessary elements for a quantitative and precise method." "Setting up the experiment required the following elements:" "An ionization chamber consisting of a condenser made of plates." "A Curie electrometer." "A piezoelectric quartz." "To measure the very weak currents passed through the ionized air by the uranium rays, the method consisted of offsetting on a sensitive electrometer" "the amount of electricity carried by the current with that supplied by a piezoelectric quartz." "This method had been discovered by Pierre and Jacques Curie." "The measurements I made soon demonstrated that the radiation from the uranium compounds was an atomic property of the element uranium." "Its intensity was proportional to the amount of uranium contained in the compound." "Then I researched out of all the known elements those which might have the same property." "I found that thorium compounds were the only ones to emit rays similar to those emitted by uranium." "This was no longer a case of uranium rays but of a new phenomenon:" "Radioactivity." "After my research into simple compounds" "I examined a large number of minerals which I pulverized and weighed with precision." "Some of them showed an abnormal level of radioactivity." "A level much higher than I had predicted based on their uranium or thorium content." "Had I made a mistake with the experiment?" "I informed Pierre Curie of this curious phenomenon." "I had not made a mistake with the experiment." "So I came to the conclusion that the minerals contained small quantities of a much more strongly radioactive substance than either uranium or thorium." "This substance could not be one of the known elements because they had all been examined." "Therefore, this had to be a new chemical element." "Having taken a keen interest in the subject," "Pierre Curie joined forces with me to research the new substance." "We chose an ore rich in uranium:" "Pitchblende." "We separated the elements using common methods of chemical analysis." "Measuring the radioactivity of the separated products led us to detect in pitchblende the presence of two new radioelements:" "Polonium and radium." "Now we just had to isolate these elements." "The separation of the elements required quantities of raw materials far greater than those we had treated." "Using our own resources we procured several tons of pitchblende residue which was sent to us from Bohemia and delivered to the courtyard of the physics school." "The only production space we had at our disposal for processing the pure radium chloride was a wooden barn with no facilities whatsoever." "There was no laboratory in which we could have discharged harmful gases." "We had to conduct our experiments in the courtyard whenever the weather allowed." "I would process up to 20 kg of material at once." "It was tiring work, transporting containers and stirring the boiling matter for hours on end with an iron rod." "Despite the hardships of our working conditions we felt very happy" "Pierre Curie wanted radium to be brightly colored." "We would return in the evening to our makeshift laboratory purely for the pleasure of seeing that radium was more than just brightly colored." "In the dark it was spontaneously luminescent." "We had managed to prepare a decigram of pure radium chloride." "It was the first proof of atomic weight." "Thus the chemical individuality of radium was established, incontrovertibly." "In recognition of our work we were awarded the Nobel prize for physics." "Pierre Curie was appointed professor at the Faculte des Sciences in Paris and a member of the Institut de France." "In 1906 he was one of the top-ranking scientists in his country." "Exhausted from his work and unwell, he went with me and our two children, Iréne and Eve, to spend Easter in Chevreuse Valley." "These were happy days." "The next day on 19 April" "Pierre Curie was run over by a horse and cart." "His head injury proved fatal and he was killed outright." "Thus was destroyed all the hope that had been placed on this admirable human being who was now dead." "In the study that he would never return to the water crowfoots we had brought back from the countryside were still fresh." "THE END"