The uranic-ray activity did not disappear or even dissipate when uranium combined chemically with other elements. Nor did the activity of her samples alter if she heated them to high temperatures, or exposed them to strong light, or bombarded them with X-rays. Nothing sapped uranium’s emissive power. On the basis of these observations, she concluded that the release of uranic rays must be an essential atomic property of uranium, as constant and defining as its atomic weight. Yet uranium’s behavior defied the most fundamental physical principles. Basic “laws” of physics stipulated that energy
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