Traité de Radioactivité

Abstract

NO more effective illustration of the rapidity of advance of accurate knowledge of radioactivity can be taken than a comparison of the two books published on the subject by Mme. Curie, at an interval of seven years. The first, published as a thesis for the doctorate of science in 1903, was a small volume of 142 pages, and gave an account, not only of her own work, but of most of the important facts known in radio-activity at that time. The second, published at the close of 1910, consists of two volumes, containing in all nearly a thousand closely-written pages, and giving an orderly and systematic account bf the large mass of data that has been accumulated in the interval. The remarkable rapidity of advance of this new branch of science largely results from two factors—the discovery and isolation of radium by Prof, and Mme. Curie, and the development of the transformation theory in 1903.

Traité de Radioactivité.

By Prof. Mme. P. Curie. Tome i., pp. xiii + 426. Tome ii., pp. 548. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1910.) Price, 2 vols., 30 francs.