I claimed history was rewritten in the period 1906, 1911. To refute that claim, you need early sources, pre 1906 sources, not today’s sources.
Perhaps you should instead look at 1900 sources, stuff published shortly after Pierre Curie discovered radium, rather than post hoc rationalizations published after Marie Curie had already been made a mascot.
The original basis for making her a mascot was the discovery of radium—in which her role was minor and peripheral.
First they made her a mascot, then they discovered her contributions were absolutely revolutionary.
What was revolutionary was the discovery of radioactive decay, that radioactivity arose from the transmutation of the elements, which discovery came from Rutherford and the circle of people around him, not from Pierre Curie and the circle of people around him, and came from the discovery of radon, not the discovery of radium.
Pierre Curie’s big contribution was to invent and build a device for quantitatively measuring radioactivity, and then set his wife to work measuring the radioactivity of various samples that he and his other assistants prepared.
So even if the discovery that radioactivity was independent of the chemical form of the element was “absolutely revolutionary”, it can even less be attributed to Marie Curie than can the discovery of radium.
I claimed history was rewritten in the period 1906, 1911. To refute that claim, you need early sources, pre 1906 sources, not today’s sources.
Perhaps you should instead look at 1900 sources, stuff published shortly after Pierre Curie discovered radium, rather than post hoc rationalizations published after Marie Curie had already been made a mascot.
The original basis for making her a mascot was the discovery of radium—in which her role was minor and peripheral.
First they made her a mascot, then they discovered her contributions were absolutely revolutionary.
What was revolutionary was the discovery of radioactive decay, that radioactivity arose from the transmutation of the elements, which discovery came from Rutherford and the circle of people around him, not from Pierre Curie and the circle of people around him, and came from the discovery of radon, not the discovery of radium.
Pierre Curie’s big contribution was to invent and build a device for quantitatively measuring radioactivity, and then set his wife to work measuring the radioactivity of various samples that he and his other assistants prepared.
So even if the discovery that radioactivity was independent of the chemical form of the element was “absolutely revolutionary”, it can even less be attributed to Marie Curie than can the discovery of radium.