Irene Joliot-Curie Quotations

We have shown that it is possible to create a radioactivity characterized by the emission of positive or negative electrons in boron and magnesium by bombardment with alpha rays.

Each emission of an alpha or beta ray accompanies the transmutation of an atom; the energy communicated to these rays comes from inside the atom.

It was at the beginning of 1934 while working on the emission of these positive electrons that we noticed a fundamental difference between that transmutation and all the others so far produced; all the reactions of nuclear chemistry induced were instantaneous phenomena, explosions.

The time necessary for the disappearance of half the atoms, called the half-life, is a fundamental characteristic of each radio-element; according to the substance, the value of the half-life varies between a fraction of a second and millions of years.

The farther the experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize.

That one must do some work seriously and must be independent and not merely amuse oneself in life-this our mother [Marie Curie] has told us always, but never that science was the only career worth following.