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term “half-life,” which refers to the amount of time it takes one half of an unstable element to decay or change into either another element or a different form of itself. Not all elements have a half-life, only unstable ones. That’s because as unstable elements give off radiation, they change. depending on the specific material, the half-life could be as short as a second or as long as a billion years. But an element’s half-life never changed. So, for example, scientists could figure out the exact age of a certain piece of uranium by calculating how far it had decayed. Using this method, Rutherford found out that a piece of uranium from Connecticut was 550 million years old. Rutherford’s work, as he himself said, “increases the possible limit of the duration of life on this planet, and allows the time claimed by the geologist and biologist for the process of evolution.” In other words, the aging of elements was helping to prove darwin right about the Earth being far older than the biblical projection of six thousand years.

In 1905, an amateur Swiss physicist, Albert Einstein, also had some thoughts about unstable elements. According to his calculation (the famous theory of relativity), very small amounts of matter were capable of turning into huge amounts of energy. Radioactivity was an extraordinarily effective means of producing energy.

In 1906, Marie voiced her acceptance of the decay theory. Through the decay theory, she was able to refute another scientist’s claim to have isolated a new element that was suspiciously similar to her polonium. She published a study showing how polonium decayed and became what the other scientist was calling “radiotellurium.” But the two had the same half-life and thus were one and the same. In establishing polonium’s half-life, Marie was shoring up her own discoveries.

Pierre’s contributions were diminishing. discombobulated by the distractions of fame, he wrote, “There are days when we scarcely have time to breathe.” Still, he noted that Marie “does not lose a minute” between teaching, child care, and putting in many more hours than he did at the lab, even finding time for occasional concerts and art exhibits. Of course, Marie as usual pushed herself to the point of overload. One of Ève’s very first memories was of her exhausted mother fainting and falling to the floor.

In 1904, Marie wrote a magazine article detailing her discoveries so far, ending with a very practical plea for more resources to continue their work: “At the present time we possess only about a gram of pure salts of radium. Research in all branches of experimental science—physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine—is impeded, and a whole evolution in science is retarded, by the lack of this precious and unique material, which can now be obtained only at great expense.” Years would pass before her plea was answered, but in the meantime she was always generous in supplying fellow researchers with samples of what she produced, allowing competitors to make further discoveries. Marie even gave free consultation to factories in the United States, who adopted her method for extracting radium to produce commercial products.

Finally finding a moment to take a break, the Curies traveled in 1905 to Sweden to give their Nobel lecture at the Swedish Academy. Pierre was designated to give the speech (Marie had to sit in the audience!), but her husband gave her full credit, mentioning her name ten times and himself only five.

His speech has become famous for its dark prediction. For the first time, someone was prophesying the potential for evil from radium, which unleashed such tremendous energy: “Radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands,” warned Pierre—“a terrible means of destruction in the hands of criminals who are leading the people toward war.”

Still, he remained firmly in the camp of those convinced that radium would do more good than harm, and that discovering the secrets of nature was worth the risk.

But by this time, his leg bones were deteriorating. Some days he could barely stand upright. He was forty-eight