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Article: Radioactive Chemicals
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Radioactive Chemicals
Radioactivity
was discovered near the turn of the twentieth century through the work of Wilhelm R
ö
entgen (1895, discovers X-rays), Antoine Becquerel (1896, discovers radioactivity), Marie and Pierre Curie (1898, isolates polonium and radium), and Ernest Rutherford (1899 and following years, identifies alpha, beta, and gamma radiation). Since that time, use of radioactive materials has made significant impacts in such areas as biology, chemistry, medicine, energy production, and nuclear weapons production.
While use of radioactive materials has been essential to many recent advances in these fields, use of radioactive materials has also resulted in generation ...