Radiation and modern life : fulfilling Marie Curie's dream
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Radiation and modern life : fulfilling Marie Curie's dream
Prometheus Books, 2004
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
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  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
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  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
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  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
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  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
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  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
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  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-317) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
With an introduction by Marie Curie's granddaughter, nuclear physicist Dr. Helene Langevin-Joliot, who reveals a host of interesting and hitherto unknown stories about her famous family (winners of five Nobel Prizes), this unique popular science book dispels many unfounded fears and provides a wealth of valuable information.
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Marie Curie's first Nobel Prize, awarded to her and her husband, Pierre, for their monumental discovery of radioactivity, it is an ideal time to reflect on the countless ways that their astounding work has so marvelously enriched our daily lives. Despite public fears of the potentially harmful effects of radiation from nuclear waste, we in fact rely on its many beneficial uses everyday for fresh food preservation, fighting terrorism, stopping crime, cancer detection and treatment, spacecraft power, and numerous other life-enhancing applications.
In this lucid overview of radiation's many great benefits and ongoing potential, Dr. Alan E. Waltar, past president of the American Nuclear Society, explains how this important energy source has been harnessed to serve a plethora of humanitarian tasks. Through artful use of vivid anecdotes that give vibrancy to technical explanations, Waltar provides numerous examples of radiation's many uses in agriculture, medicine, electricity generation, modern industry, transportation, public safety, environmental protection, space exploration, and even archeology and the arts. Estimating the total financial contribution of all these varied uses, Waltar comes to the startling revelation that radiation technology now contributes more than $420 billion to the U.S. economy and over 4.4 million jobs. In only one century, Marie Curie's discoveries have provided an infrastructure larger than the entire U.S. airline industry.
In the future Dr. Waltar foresees continuous improvement in many areas of science, industry, and medicine through tapping the incredible potential of Marie Curie's initial insights. At a time when our dependency on foreign oil makes us vulnerable and when we know that our fossil fuel resources will soon be used up, we need to understand radiation more than ever. This superb book will provide that necessary insight.
by "Nielsen BookData"