Marguerite Perey and the last element in nature
Kit Chapman tells the story of the chemist who discovered francium, but was almost denied the credit
Marguerite Perey was born in France in 1909 and in 1929 she took a diploma in chemistry at the Technical School of Women’s Education in Paris, which qualified her to work as a laboratory technician. She began working at the Radium Institute as personal assistant to Marie Curie. Her early work revolved around purifying actinium from uranium ore for Curie. In 1938, Perey noticed the actinium sample was giving off an unexpected decay energy. In January 1939, after meticulous purification and testing, she calculated the actinium sample had alpha-decayed into a new element: francium.