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Spurred by the discovery that a substance containing uranium emitted radiation, Marie Curie began studying radioactivity in 1897. ███ █████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ████████████ █ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ███████████ ████████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ █ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ████████ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ ███████ █████████ ██ █ ██████████ █████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ █ █████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████████████ ███████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██ ████████████ ████ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ███ ████████████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ █ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████

Intro topic · Marie Curie's discoveries related to radiation

Discovered polonium and radium. Also disocvered that uranium emitted radiation at a constant rate. But, she couldn't explain what causes raidation.

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Critics and response · Some fault Curie for not discovering cause of radiation and decreasing rate; author says it wasn't her fault

Curie didn't have the evidence that we have today.

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Support for author's response · Various radioactive isotopes weren't available to Curie or decayed to slowly to learn anything about rate

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Additional support · Nature of atom was being debated during Curie's time

Physicists (like Curie) believed that matter couldn't be divided indefinitely. In other words, there's nothing smalling than the atom.

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Continuing prior support · Curie couldn't have realized that atoms lose mass

Praise for Curie · Curie's research helped later breakthroughs

Passage Style

Critique or debate

Spotlight

10.

The passage implies which one ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████ █████ █████ ████████ ██████████████

Question Type

Implied

It’s difficult to predict the correct answer just based on the question stem. We know that at the time Curie began studying radioactivity, scientists did not yet understand atoms and that they could lose mass. But let’s keep an open mind.

Pitchblende was not █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███████ ████████

Supported, because Curie had a hypothesis that pitchblende must have at least one other radioactive element besides uranium. If the scientific community already believed that there was another radioactive element in pitchblende besides uranium, it would be strange for Curie to hypothesize the existence of another radioactive element in pitchblende. This would instead be something that was already believed prior to Curie’s research.

57%

Radioactivity was suspected ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███

Not supported, because we don’t have any claims about what scientists suspected regarding the cause of radiation in pitchblende. If anything, scientists would probably have thought radiation in pitchblende was caused by uranium, because they already knew pitchblende had uranium.

Physicists and chemists ███ █████████ █████ ████████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████

We’re told that physicists and chemists had different views of the atom, but this doesn’t imply they had differing views regarding the cause of radiation.

15%

Research was not █████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████

Not supported, because the nature of the atom was still being debated at the time. So there’s reason to think there might have been some ongoing research into matter and whether it’s composed of atoms.

15%

The majority of ██████████ ████████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████████

Not supported, because we’re never told what proportion of physicists viewed uranium to be the only source of radioactivity. It’s possible none of them thought uranium was the only source of radioactivity. Although we know that scientists did not know about polonium and radium, it’s possible scientists were aware of some other kind of radioactive subtance besides uranium, polonium, and radium.

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