Who was Stefania Mărăcineanu? The researcher was one of the pioneers in the discovery and research of radioactivity. Today’s Doodle — the stylized image on Google’s homepage — celebrates the Romanian physicist’s 140th birthday. This should increase their exposure to a level commensurate with their performance. For a long time, Mărăcineanu and her work were criminally ignored. Even in her native Romania, she was apparently so unknown that it led to a bitter curious confusion.
Born in Bucharest in 1882, Mărăcineanu completed her studies in physics and chemistry in 1910 and initially taught at a girls’ school. After World War I, Mărăcineanu received a grant from the Romanian Ministry of Science, which allowed her to conduct research at the Radium Institute in Paris. Under the direction of physicist Marie Curie, the Institute quickly became a global center for radioactivity research. It was here that Mărăcineanu wrote her dissertation on polonium, an element that Curie discovered.
Research into artificial radioactivity
In her research on the half-life of polonium, Mărăcineanu found that the half-life seemed to depend on the type of metal it is on. This led them to wonder if the alpha rays from the polonium had converted some of the metal atoms into radioactive isotopes. Their research led to what is probably the first example of man-made radioactivity.
Mărăcineanu enrolled at the Sorbonne University in Paris to obtain her doctorate in physics – which took her only two years. She later returned to Romania and established the first radioactivity research laboratory in her home country. Mărăcineanu, for example, investigated the link between earthquakes and precipitation and was the first to show that radioactivity increases significantly at the epicenter of an earthquake.
In 1935, Marie Curie’s daughter, Irène Currie, and her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. Mărăcineanu did not dispute the credit that would have been hers, but only asked that her role in the discovery be recognised. Her work was finally recognized in 1936 by the Romanian Academy of Sciences, where she was elected research director.
Stamp with fake portrait
She died of cancer in 1944 at the age of 62, presumably from radiation exposure at work. She never received worldwide recognition for her discovery. For example, a 1997 book on the pioneers of radioactivity describes Mărăcineanu as an “ignored Romanian scientist”. When a stamp was issued in Romania in 2013 in honor of Mărăcineanu, those responsible made a sad faux pas: the stamp erroneously shows a portrait of the much more famous researcher Marie Curie.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
