Frédéric Joliot-Curie and the first French atomic reactor

P. Radvanyi (1)

1 IPNO - Institut de Physique Nucléaire d'Orsay

Half a century ago Frédéric Joliot (1900-1958) passed away.With his wife, Irène Joliot- Curie, he had discovered artificial radioactivity in 1934, for which they were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1935. This led ultimately to the start-up, under his leadership, of the first French nuclear reactor ZOÉ, in 1948.

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

P. Radvanyi. Frédéric Joliot-Curie and the first French atomic reactor. Europhysics News, 2009, 40, pp.20-23. ⟨10.1051/epn/2009801⟩. ⟨in2p3-00455061⟩