Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science

Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science, Marjorie C. Malley, Oxford U. Press, New York, 2011. $21.95 (267 pp.). ISBN 978-0-19-976641-3

In the closing years of the 19th century, European scientists made a series of intriguing discoveries about what Pierre Curie and Marie Curie would soon dub “radio-activity.” Those discoveries would have profound implications not only for physics and chemistry but also for medicine, archaeology, meteorology, and eventually the military. That project of understanding and harnessing radioactivity, with all of its promise and threat, was a crucial contribution to modernity in the 20th century.

In part 1 of Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science, author Marjorie Malley skims lightly along the surface of the subject’s important scientific history, starting with Henri Becquerel’s experiments with uranium minerals in 1896 and ending with Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Lise Meitner’s discovery of nuclear fission in 1938. Along the way, Malley offers a soupçon of cultural and political history: “It was 1895 in Europe . . . England, France, and Italy were staking out claims to parts of Africa, while across the Atlantic pioneers streamed into the remaining American Indian territories. . . . A romantic strand was woven into the era’s culture.” Token mentions of the Model T and Bakelite, the telephone and Pablo Picasso, suffragettes and the doomed Robert Scott appear alongside Malley’s more detailed discussions of researches into radioactive dating techniques, luminous paints, measurements of decay periods and their relationship to alpha-particle ranges, and missing elements in the radioactive decay series.

The author’s contextualizing impulse is a good one, though at times her execution feels clumsy. That effort is part of her aim to write a brief bread-and-butter history of radioactivity that weaves in basic observations from the broader history of science literature. She points out, for instance, that what are later seen as important discoveries may go relatively unnoticed in their own time, or they are seen by those who do notice—including their own discoverers—as either trivial or confounding. To illustrate the complex social and professional influences on priority disputes, she tells the story of how Frederick Soddy received credit for the discovery of isotopes, despite the legitimate claims of several other, less well-known scientists. None of those basic themes will be news to anyone who has given much attention to the history of science; the author clearly wants to reach readers for whom such observations will be novel.

According to Malley, and in consonance with her professional background, Radioactivity grew out of her desire to provide an overview for interested nonspecialists, particularly students and teachers. Part 1 of the book functions well for that purpose. For readers who know little or nothing of the history and are not interested in the technical details, Malley’s book is a solid, concise introduction to the topic.

What the book is not—if you will pardon the pun—is scintillating. The author’s peculiar choice to separate the scientific narrative from the social, cultural, philosophical, and medical aspects of radiation means that some of the more striking and compelling parts of the story are not revealed until parts 2 and 3. Malley’s organization gives the book a disjointed quality. We get a basic biography of Marie Curie in an early chapter, for example, but only near the end of the book do we learn about the grievous effects of radiation on her health or her awed description of the glowing tubes in her workroom as “faint, fairy lights.” Furthermore, the reader often has a sense of missed opportunities. Why not, for instance, offer a less fragmented, richer account of the discovery of fission, given what a fascinating and important moment it is? The author also claims at several points that the science of radioactivity created new opportunities for women beyond the likes of confirmed contributors such as Curie and Meitner. But not much detail is given about those other women or their professional lives, nor is it adequately explained why radioactivity research should be a particularly congenial field for women.

Despite its shortcomings, Radioactivity is a good starting place for those encountering the material for the first time. Perhaps some of its lacunae will be taken by its most enterprising readers as a challenge to learn more about this crucial history.