Henri BECQUEREL. Autograph manuscript (corrected draft in ha - Lot 121

Lot 121
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6000 - 8000 EUR
Henri BECQUEREL. Autograph manuscript (corrected draft in ha - Lot 121
Henri BECQUEREL. Autograph manuscript (corrected draft in hard-to-decipher handwriting), 4 ½ pp. in-folio. Circa 1903. Precious notes on radioactivity, listing, from Nov. 1899 to Jan. 1903, the discoveries and work of Pierre and Marie Curie, André-Louis Debierne, Ernest Rutherford and himself. "Curie et Mme Curie. Nov. 6, 1899. Radioactivity communicated by exposure to Ra[dium] rays. Increases with time. Tends to limit. Plate activity. Induced radioactivity decreases rapidly then slowly. Asymptotic law [...]. Feb. 17, 01 Curie ionized liquids [...] We also investigated the behavior of the weakened uranium chloride crystals removed from these solutions; they gradually recovered, but the humidity conditions from which they had been removed made the results irregular. Transformed into oxides on December 24, they were(?) identical to each other. It should be added that on December 27, the same quantity of the above-mentioned mixture of uranium chloride and barium chloride was placed in two balloons, one closed and the other open. The barium sulfide precipitates collected gave a calculated activity of 0.0718 for the closed balloon and 0.0779 for the open balloon [...]. July 1902. M. Rutherford [...] made an interesting study of the absorption of these radiations from Uranium by this block, with various reservations, and then focused on the study of the emanation of Thorium and Radium (noting that the law of production of(?) is the same with or without an electric field). He concludes from absorption that Thorium and Radium radiations are identical (effects not en bloc). Dispersion of induced radioactivity. Radiation induced by Tho[rium] loses ½ in 11 hours. For Radium, different curves for different preparations [...]. Continued emanation of Tho[rium] and Ra[dium] / Emanation (Dorn and not Curie - not aware of radium emanation) [...]". We enclose 2 newspaper articles (French and German), one from Le Temps, January 7, 1904, on the work of Curie and Becquerel on radioactivity.
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