Joliot-Curie, Irène (1897–1956)
French physicist, the daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie.
She and her husband Jean Frédérick Joliot (1900–1958),
shared the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of artificial
radioactivity. For example, in their
joint research they discovered that aluminium atoms exposed to alpha
particles transmuted to radioactive phosphorus atoms. Both later played
a major part in the formation of the French atomic energy commission but,
because of their communism, were removed from positions of responsibility
there. Like her mother, Irène died from leukemia
as a result of prolonged exposure to radioactive materials.
|Irène and Frédéric