The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom

What it is

This is the fourth edition, revised and enlarged, of a book by chemist Frederick Soddy, first published in 1909 and reprinted in 1922. It discusses radioactivity and the structure of the atom, scanned and digitized by the Internet Archive.

Why it matters

Soddy was a leading chemist working on radioactivity, and his book places Marie Curie's discovery and study of radium within the wider scientific understanding of atomic structure developing in the early twentieth century.

Look closer

• Why might a scientist like Soddy, rather than Curie herself, be the one writing this kind of overview?
• What does the existence of multiple revised editions tell you about how fast this field of science was changing?
• This is a scanned copy of the printed book — what might get lost or changed in that process?