Token of Affection
Sep 05, 2017
It's been a busy summer for me, and I'm afraid I've been ignoring my Tapastic updates/subscribers. Well... get ready... because you're about to get a daily dose of the next 12 episodes!
HISTORIC NOTES in comments below...
Wesley Dickson
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HISTORIC NOTE #1: In reality, of course, Pierre did not _surprise_ Marie with the acquisition of one metric ton of pitchblende (about 2,205 pounds), but her reaction, according to her daughter's biography, was just as enthusiastic: "Marie could not contain her joy at the sight of the sacks that were being unloaded." Pierre did acquire the ore through "gonnegtions" he had in Austria, through whom he contacted the directors of the St. Joachimsthal mine. There, the ore was mined in order to extract the Uranium which pitchblende contains. The residue was essentially waste, and the mine just happened to have a giant pile of it building up in a nearby pine forest. When Marie first thrust her hands into the sacks, the ore was "still mixed with pine needles from Bohemia." On page 2, Marie is speculating that polonium is present as "a tenth of 1%" or "a hundredth [of 1%]"; in fact, it turned out to be TEN-THOUSANDTH of 1%. In other words, her element was a true "one in a million," one part per million. As a result, she had to process NOT JUST ONE TON of pitchblende, but, over the course of FOUR YEARS, _SEVERAL TONS_ in order to isolate an adequate sample.
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