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Primary sourceDocument12 April 1898

Rayons émis par les composés de l'uranium et du thorium

Marie Curie · 12 April 1898

Marie Curie's first solo scientific paper, published in 1898, showing that radioactivity is a property of atoms and that thorium is radioactive.

Her first solo scientific publication, establishing radioactivity as an atomic property.

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Source: fr.wikisource.org

About this source

What it is

This is a scientific paper written by Marie Curie alone and presented to the Académie des Sciences in 1898. It was published in the journal Comptes Rendus.

Why it matters

In this paper Curie showed that radioactivity comes from inside atoms themselves, not from chemical reactions, and that thorium shares this property with uranium. This secured her claim to an important scientific idea.

Look closer

  • Why would publishing a paper alone, without Pierre Curie, have mattered to her?
  • What kind of evidence might she have needed to convince other scientists?
  • What does this paper not tell us about the conditions she worked in?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Marie Curie on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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