English. Соколова Е.В. - 26 стр.

States, where President Warren G. Harding presented her with a gram of pure radium
bought for the money of American women.
    Time went by, and Marie's daughter Irene received her bachelor's degree, became
her mother's assistant at the Institute of Radium and started her doctoral research on
the alpha rays of polonium. Events went as if on inertia until she met Frederic Joliot
in her mother's laboratory, lie was young, good-looking, sportive, and a great lover of
arts.
    Actually, when a boy Frederic Joliot distinguished himself more in sports than in
studies. Be-cause of little money his family chose a free public education at the La-
voisier municipal school and later — engineering studies at the school of physics.
After his military service, on the recommendation of a physicist, Frederic was hired
in 1925 as Marie Curie's assistant. The following year Frederic and Irene were mar-
ried.
    Under the influence of his talented wife Joliot observed different substances, and
learned laboratory techniques and very soon became a complete physicist. Together
they bombarded boron, aluminum, and magnesium with alpha particles; and obtained
radioactive isotopes of elements not originally radioactive — nitrogen, phosphorus,
and aluminium. Those discoveries made it possible to use artificial radioactive ele-
ments for chemical changes and physiological processes, and soon their use was a
great success.
    Though their little children, Helene and Pierre took much of their time, Irene and
Frederic were very active socially, in fact, they joined the Socialist Party in 1934, and
took a stand in 1936 on the side of Republican Spain.
    Frederic became a professor at the College of France in 1937. He then directed
the construction of electrostatic accelerators and a cyclotron of seven million electron
volts at the College of France.
    At that time the Joliot-Curies decided to public everything, including their break-
through ideas of artificial radioactive elements. But fear of Nazism and the possible
dangers that could come from the use of nuclear reactions did not let them do that. On
October 30, 1939, they recorded the principle of nuclear reactors in a sealed enve-
lope, and left it at the French Academy of Sciences; this message to the next genera-
tions remained secret until 1949.
    Frederic chose to stay in occupied France with his family and was sure that the
Germans who came into his laboratory could not use his work. In the war time the
Joliot-Curies continued their research in biology.
    But the battle against the occupying fascist forces began to require more and more
of his attention. In June of 1941 the brave man took part in the founding of the Na-
tional Front Committee, and became its president. In the spring of 1942 the famous
theoretical physicist J. Solomon was killed by the Nazis. Frederic joined the French
Communist Party. In May 1944 Irene and their children took refuge in Switzerland,
and Frederic lived in Paris under the name of Jean-Pierre Gaumont. His laboratory at
the College of France was used as a military arsenal during the battle for Paris.
    Back in France after the war, Irene experimented a lot with raw materials. In 1946
she was appointed director of the Institute of Radium. Frederic's activities were fo-

28