Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 1(1): 77-96, 2017

Firenze University Press 
www.fupress.com/substantia

DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-14

Citation: M. Fontani, M.V. Orna, M. 
Costa, S. Vater (2017) Science is not a 
Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Dis-
covery of  Artificial Radioactivity. Sub-
stantia 1(1): 77-96. doi: 10.13128/Sub-
stantia-14

Copyright: © 2017 M. Fontani, M.V. 
Orna, M.a Costa, S. Vater.This is an 
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Competing Interests: The authors 
declare no competing interests.

Historical Article

Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed 
Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

Marco Fontani1*, Mary Virginia Orna2, Mariagrazia Costa1 and 
Sabine Vater1,3

1 Dipartimento di Chimica “Ugo Schiff ”, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via della La-
struccia 13, Sesto Fiorentino (FI) Italy. E-mail: marco.fontani@unifi.it
2 The College of New Rochelle, New York, USA. E-mail: maryvirginiaorna@gmail.com
3 Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, Faculty of Chemistry and Physics, Leip-
ziger Straße 29, Freiberg, Germany. E-mail: sabinevater1993@googlemail.com

Abstract. A not very recent, but widely documented, event whose echo still resounds, 
the discovery of artificial radioactivity, might still cause some historians to lose a lit-
tle sleep. The topic of this article recounts a noble attempt by historians of science to 
make known to the general public a woman who managed - in a backward country 
like România Mare1 -  to ascend the ranks of the university hierarchy and enter the 
hallowed halls of Academe. We could talk about a Romanian Madame Curie, similar 
to Lise Meitner (1878-1968), who embodied the same figure for the German world; but 
Romanian historians add other ideas. 
Stephanie (Ştefania) Mărăcineanu (1882-1944) - the correct spelling of her name is 
in brackets - according to some would be nothing less than the discoverer of artifi-
cial radioactivity as well as the chemical transmutation of lead into gold and mercury, 
and of artificial rain. The discovery of induced or artificial radioactivity is universally 
attributed to the daughter and the son-in-law of Marie (1867-1934) and Pierre Curie 
(1859-1906). Furthermore, Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) and her husband, Frédéric 
Joliot (1900-1958) were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry 1935 for this work. This 
study is divided into both an historic framing of the real and presumptive discoveries 
and in an analysis of the original data in light of our current knowledge of physics. An 
initial historic study, albeit partial, and with the aim of shedding light on the female 
personalities in the field of radioactivity, has already been done.2 Other scholars have 
examined Ştefania Mărăcineanu's work focusing on its social, political, cultural and 
ideological aspects.3 But no matter how much scientists try to be objective, they must 
always struggle between their beliefs and their human prejudices, including all of their 
habits of thought more or less imposed, and often inadvertently, by the society and the 
country in which they are formed.4  It will therefore be our task to take account of 
the difficulties hitherto reported, and for that it will be absolutely necessary to exercise 
judicial restraint.

Keywords. Mărăcineanu, Artificial Radioactivity, History of Chemistry,



78 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

SCIENCE WHISPERED ABOUT IN THE HALLWAYS

At the beginning of the 1920s, when the phenom-
enon of radioactivity had finally been clarified as spon-
taneous nuclear fragmentation, a series of controversial 
publications - initially given to the press with the full 
support of respected professors - appeared in minor jour-
nals, as well as in prestigious ones such as Comptes Ren-
dus of the French Academy of Sciences.

One example is the controversial case of Marie 
Curie’s not-so-young student, Ştefania Mărăcineanu, who 
obtained a Ph.D. at the Institut du Radium at the age of 
42, and within five years, she published some articles 
containing her scientific results. With a nonchalance at 
the limit of scientific orthodoxy, she announced four 
different (false or incomplete) findings: artificial radio-
activity induced by alpha bombardment, the transmu-
tation of lead into mercury and gold, the discovery of 
artificial rain, and an alleged link between earthquakes 
and radioactivity.5 Only one of these discoveries, if true, 
could assure a Nobel Prize; they were of such magnitude 
that three of them would have placed her in the panthe-
on of scientists in all of history. On the contrary, if one, 
or more, of these presumed breakthroughs, so hastily 
announced, should prove a huge blunder, it would have 
severely compromised her career.We will set aside for 
the epilogue of this story a duplicate turn of events: two 
of the four announcements were immediately branded 
as examples of “pathological science,”6 but at the same 
time Ştefania Mărăcineanu could be found in her home 
country with a university professorship and member-
ship in the Romanian Academy of Sciences.7 After her 
first article on artificial radioactivity, there was no talk of 
this except as a springboard for her subsequent discovery. 
Critics attacked her on this second far trickier topic: the 
transmutation of the elements.

On the one hand, Mărăcineanu did not seem to 
be aware of the possible scope of her first discovery, 
and would persist in dwelling on a subject much more 
intriguing as the transmutation of lead, but this was not 
acceptable to the scientific community. 

Despite the fact that her work on chemical transmu-
tation induced by solar radiation was immediately refut-
ed, on the contrary, decades after her death, in her native 
Romania, a historiographic approach to her work on 
artificial radioactivity smacking of a lively, colorful, even 
aggressive, revisionism had reached a crescendo. Unfor-
tunately many of these enthusiastic interpretations are 
not supported by the same scientific rigor and the data 
reported counting on a posthumous rehabilitation are 
either very weak or ontologically unacceptable because 
the authors seem to rewrite history for their own con-

venience. Furthermore, none of the authors were able to 
produce any new documentation8 or got themselves lost 
in a useless speculative extrapolation of phrases taken out 
of context, passing over the most controversial and falla-
cious aspects.9

In a post-ideological period such as the first dec-
ade of the 21st century, freed from certain cultural 
constraints, greater objectivity is not only possible but 
required. This is a new task laid upon the shoulders 
of those who “do” history of science: to be vigilant and 
never regard certain discoveries as unassailable, and 
to uncritically accept a new revisionism that might be 
vaguely nationalistic.10

Regarding scientific knowledge: we do not know 
whether it can and whether it should be considered a 
cumulative cognitive process and, above all, axiomatic 
and immutable, but the events related to this episode 
have in themselves some aspects so conflicting, embed-
ded in an aura of alchemy and xenophobia as to create 
doubts that “Science” can be advanced as a symbol of 
progress and civilization.

ARTIFICIAL RADIOACTIVITY 

Ştefania Mărăcineanu had begun to work in Marie 
Curie’s laboratory in the early 1920s when she was about 
40 years old. In 1923, her Paris address was rue Cassette, 
11. It is known that Nicolae Iorga11 (1871-1940) had 
founded the „Şcoala Română din Paris”12 in 1920 and 
probably Ştefania Mărăcineanu was one of the first schol-
arship recipients to go to the French capital. At that time, 
she was busy working on her PhD that she received two 
years later. In this case we can speak of scientific “matu-
rity,” in which a scientist, over the years, has probed and 
tilled different (scientific) fields and has come to full con-
sciousness of himself/herself and has already given signs 
of his or her genius.

We have to start by saying that we are basically 
opposed to using the birth certificate as a yardstick, but it 
is undeniable that in scientific disciplines such as physics 
or physical chemistry - unlike love or literature - age is 
not simply a bourgeois convention, but an objective fact.

Her PhD research was supposed to focus on a more 
accurate measurement of polonium’s decay constant. This 
element, highly radioactive but with a relatively short half 
life,13 was concentrated as much as possible and electrolyt-
ically purified. It was the 10th anniversary of the outbreak 
of World War I: Marie Curie commissioned the no longer 
young Romanian PhD student to determine this element’s 
decay constant with a level of precision and accuracy 
unimaginable in 1914, before Europe was falling to pieces. 



79Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

As is now well known, radioactivity may either be 
natural or induced (artificial), depending on whether 
nuclear decay is spontaneous or is caused by means of 
some other nuclear reaction. 

In 1924, only natural radioactivity, discovered by 
Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) in 1896, was known. Marie 
Curie, the greatest expert in the world in the field of radi-
oactivity, had discovered two naturally occurring radioac-
tive elements (calling them radium and polonium). Cer-
tainly she could not have imagined that within a decade 
of these discoveries, the courage she had exhibited and 
the intellectual satisfaction she had derived from her 
life’s work would bestow on her a gift with a two-edged 
sword. Contaminated by her radioactive substances and 
prematurely robbed of her health, Marie Curie would be 
brought to her grave in July 1934; in January of that same 
year, although worn out and suffering from a chronic 
fever, she witnessed the greatest discovery that ever took 
place at the Institut Curie through the work of her daugh-
ter and son-in-law: artificial radioactivity. 

As mentioned previously, in 1922, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu was trying to record the average half life 
of polonium in that same period. Polonium (Po) has 33 
isotopes, all of them radioactive, the number of nucle-
ons ranging between 186 and 227. The isotope 210Po is a 
pure alpha-emitter and has a half life of 138.376 days, the 
longest of its five naturally occurring isotopes (Table 1).14 

The subject of Mărăcineanu's doctoral research was 
to accurately and precisely determine the decay constant 
of element 84. This was, for Marie Curie, a fundamental 
topic and at the same time a great worry: in fact, the val-
ue of the half life varied from 135 to 143 days depending 
on the source from which the polonium was extracted: 
for many radiochemists, such a wide range was uncom-
fortable, and even unacceptable.15 

At the French Academy’s session of June 23, 1923, 
the newly appointed Academician, Georges Urbain 
(1872-1938), read Mărăcineanu's PhD thesis to the 
assembly. The polonium used came from ampules of 
emanation [i.e., radium] which had been previously used 

for medical purposes. The electrolytic process for the 
obtaining of the polonium-free radium-D impurities [e.g., 
Pb; see Table 2, below] had been developed in the chem-
istry laboratory of the Institut du Radium. 

A drop of polonium chloride, PoCl2, solution was 
deposited on a metallic or glass plate and left to evapo-
rate. The plate was subsequently rinsed with distilled 
water to remove traces of acid. An ionization camera, 
complete with a piezoelectric quartz electrometer (as a 
current compensator), to detect alpha particles allowed 
for the determination of the activity of the radioelement 
- in the form of an electric current - over the course of 
time. Mărăcineanu was able to derive polonium’s decay 
constant by measuring the logarithm of the current 
against time.

Ştefania Mărăcineanu conducted numerous experi-
ments divided into two series: the first series of 38 
measurements was carried out between March and May 
of 1922. She re-covered the polonium with slips of alu-
minum foil of varying thicknesses between 3/1000 and 
7/1000 of a millimeter. In the second set of measure-
ments, which began in May, she offset the aluminum 
sheet by 1 mm from the plate on which she had depos-
ited the polonium.

Table 1. The Naturally Occurring Isotopes of Polonium.

Isotope Old Name Z N Isotopic Mass (u) Half Life Type of Decay
Daughter

Isotope
210Po Radium F 84 126 209.9828737(13) 138.376(2) d α 206Pb
211Po Actinium C’ 84 127 210.9866532(14) 0.516(3) s α 207Pb
212Po Thorium C’ 84 128 211.9888680(13) 299(2) ns α 208Pb
214Po Radium C’ 84 130 213.9952014(16) 164.3(20) ms α 210Pb

215Po Actinium A 84 131 214.9994200(27) 1.781(4) ms
α (99.99%) 211Pb

β− (2.3×10−4%) 215At

Table 2. The Products of the Decay of Radium-226.

The products of 226Ra decay were initially called 
radium-A, radium-B, radium-C, etc. Later they 
were understood to be other chemical elements

Chemical Symbol 
of the Isotope

Emanation of radium (Em) 222Rn
Radium A 218Po
Radium B 214Pb
Radium C 214Bi
Radium C1 214Po
Radium C2 210Tl
Radium D 210Pb
Radium E 210Bi
Radium F 210Po



80 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

Ştefania Mărăcineanu derived a half life equal to 
139-140 days in all cases except when the measurements 
were recorded on a lead plate. In this case, the value was 
shorter: 135 days. Concerned with this unexplained vari-
ation of what was supposed to be a constant, she began to 
conduct a series of additional experiments to determine 
the reason for this anomaly. Thanks to previous work done 
by Marie Curie in 1920, she could exclude the presence of 
210Pb, radium-D, from the sample. She also examined the 
aluminum sheets and observed that they were not radioac-
tive. A likely source of error could have been the effect of 
saturation for measurements conducted over a long period 
of time (greater than 136 days), but  in this case as well, 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu had taken drastic precautions. The 
result left no doubt that no error had been committed, so 
much so that the Director of the Institut in person, Marie 
Curie, felt compelled to give an interpretation to the phe-
nomenon observed: she said she witnessed a “penetration 
of polonium into the substance used to support it.”

Marie Curie asked her to conduct a third set of 
measurements in support of this hypothesis, and this was 
completed in December, 1923. The diffusion phenom-
enon increased when the support was heated; the phe-
nomenon was observed over a range of metal supports. 
If the support were glass, no penetration (diffusion) effect 
of polonium into the support was observed. However, 
the problem was not resolved: at first it was assumed that 
the disintegration of the polonium helped it to penetrate 
lead’s crystal lattice. This conclusion was rather hard to 
accept. Later she resorted to the hypothesis of microc-
racks (or faults) in the metal support. This allowed her to 
shelve the problem for a short time. A practical arrange-
ment made it possible to calculate the decay constant: 
diluted solutions were used,16 no heat was applied, and 
glass was substituted for lead as the solid support. 

INDUCED RADIOACTIVITY BY SOLAR RADIATION

Having finished her PhD with Marie Curie, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu continued her research first in Romania (for 
a short time) and later at the Institute of Optics at the 
Meudon Observatory, near Paris, under the supervision 
of Henri Deslandres (1853-1948). 

Mărăcineanu noticed that the decay constant of polo-
nium, far from remaining immutable, varied depend-
ing on which metal was used as a support for the sam-
ple. She also noticed that the atoms of the substrate were 
“transformed” into radioactive isotopes. In all this, her 
superiors suspected nothing, but not for the reasons that 
the supporters of Ştefania Mărăcineanu eventually gave. 
If what she timidly asserted had really happened, this 

experiment would have shed light on the phenomenon of 
artificial radioactivity ten years in advance. It was not so, 
and, as we shall see, could not have been otherwise. 

Continuing her doctoral work, in an article of 
November 25, 1925,1 Ştefania Mărăcineanu suggested that 
sunlight could have an action on the radioactive decay of 
uranium and polonium.

After extended periods of exposing sheets of non-
radioactive lead to direct sunlight, they would later 
be shown to be radioactive. Likewise, uranium oxide, 
if exposed to sunlight, began to show a change in the 
decay process, a variation that Mărăcineanu called “curi-
ous periodic variations.” She tried many other things, but 
only Pb and Sb exhibited such behavior. After exposure 
to the sun these elements were able to:

• Expose photographic plates
• If placed in front of a zinc sulfide screen (detector), 

many scintillations were observed 
• Lead or a Pb/Sb alloy exhibited a weak ionization 

current, detectable with an electroscope.

Over the years Marie Curie had also observed a 
change in the decay constant of uranium, with an order 
of magnitude of about 3%. Ştefania Mărăcineanu stated 
that by the action of sunlight, this change was amplified 
up to 50%. 

On August 2 of the following year, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu published a further note in which she 
pointed out the progress of her discoveries,18 with ref-
erence to the observed solar effects on polonium. She 
placed a drop of a solution of highly purified polonium 
chloride on a somewhat thin lead sheet (1/10 mm). The 
polonium-210 she used was a pure alpha emitter. At the 
atomic level, 0.10 mm of lead is extremely thick and eas-
ily stops the alpha particles emitted by polonium, but 
inexplicably, she discovered an ionization current on the 
opposite side of the metal plate which was not exposed 
to the alpha source. She could think of only two reasons 
for this effect: induced radioactivity OR the following 
hypothesis. 

Polonium is a very strong alpha emitter, but Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu dismissed this fact. As a side effect (which, 
for Ştefania Mărăcineanu, was the primary effect), she 
observed that if the lead sheet on which the polonium 
solution had been deposited were exposed to the sun or 
kept in the shade, the ionization current varied widely. At 
the conclusion of her work, Mărăcineanu reported: “One 
might have thought of a penetration of polonium from 
one side to the other of lead, but if this were the case, 
one would have had to have a loss of polonium inside the 
lead, which has not been observed”.19 



81Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

This sentence could have been the starting point to 
see if, indeed, the scientist had observed the phenom-
enon of artificial radioactivity, but how often does it hap-
pen that ideas ahead of their time are overlooked or dis-
missed? And she herself, first of all, put forward a very 
different explanation for the observed phenomenon. 

By further work on polonium decay curves in bis-
muth, curves obtained from experimental observations 
after deposition of the polonium and before irradiation, 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu speculated that the facts “... seem 
to show that solar radiation can cause the reintegration of 
Radium-E [Bi] from Radium-F [Po], and thus can cause 
a reversal in the radiation series”.20 

This unorthodox hypothesis, based on an actual 
observation but certainly misunderstood, should have 
been immediately rejected, both by Marie Curie, her 
former director, as well as by Henri Deslandres. Things 
did not go well. Curie - maybe - was busy with wedding 
preparations for her daughter Irène, who was to marry 
the young and promising engineer, Frédéric Joliot (who 
would be assured a more flexible career by marrying the 
daughter of his employer). Henri Deslandres, on the oth-
er hand, was an astro-physicist who had done all of his 
scientific work before the mere mention of “radioactivity” 
was whispered by Marie Curie to her husband, Pierre, in 
the late 19th century. At the time, he was 73 years old, 
much older than Pierre Curie, and perhaps too sidelined 
at this point to contribute to the debate by siding in favor 
or not of this hypothesis. But this was not the case. As we 
will see in three notes, which appeared in the Comptes 
Rendus, he encouraged and praised the work and discov-
eries of Ştefania Mărăcineanu. 

A further communication from Ştefania Mărăcineanu 
appeared in Comptes Rendus reporting on the session 
held on May 30, 1927.21 

In this case as well, Marie Curie never said a word.22 
Perhaps she was occupied both within and outside of the 
laboratory walls with many other affairs: after her daugh-
ter’s wedding on October 9, 1926, her new son-in-law was 
promoted, to the great chagrin of Marie Curie’s long-stand-
ing collaborators, to the rank of “Prince Consort”.23 Irène, 
meanwhile, was “in a family way”,24 and Marie was “experi-
menting” with the idea of becoming a grandmother. 

Following the advice of her colleague Lebel, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu began to study the radioactivity of the lead 
sheets used as covering for French public buildings and 
therefore exposed to the sun’s rays from time immemorial. 
It happened that the Paris Observatory’s roof was covered 
with lead sheets. Ştefania Mărăcineanu, as she herself con-
fessed a year later, climbed up to the top of the cupola and 
at high risk began to scrape off some of this roof covering 
in order to subject it to analysis. Since she found that the 

samples’ radioactivity was so high as to be off the scale, 
she assumed that the lead - radioactive by solar induction 
- had an extremely rapid decay rate. As a matter of fact, 
Mărăcineanu carried out her measurements three times a 
day, after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But not only that, 
said she: “at noon, when the sun hits the instrument, the 
lead appears to become twice as active...”.25

To compare these results with ordinary lead, she also 
prepared daily a solution of “white” lead by treating com-
mercial galena (PbS) with acid,26 and observed: “Com-
mercial lead, prepared every day with galena, is not, as is 
known, radioactive…”.27

Henri Deslandres, her advisor and director of the 
observatory at Meudon, was so favorably impressed with 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu's research that he published a brief 
note28 in the margin of the previous article where, in the 
euphoria of discovery, sent out an enthusiastic appeal to 
readers: “The people here have lead (that has lain) for a 
long time in the sun, and who do not have the necessary 
apparatus to do research on radioactivity, are asked to 
send a sample to the Observatory of Paris”.29

The research was begun in earnest. Twenty days 
after the last communication a new work appeared30 by 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu in Comptes Rendus. Following the 
advice of her director, she extended her research to other 
metals besides lead and polonium, such as copper and 
zinc. These last two elements were, like lead, used for 
the protection of the limestone ledges of the observa-
tory. Ştefania Mărăcineanu collected specimens of them 
and observed that the surfaces hidden from the sun’s rays 
exhibited no radioactivity.

She posed the dilemma of whether the radioactivity 
might be due to atmospheric radioactivity deposited over 
the years on coatings of copper and zinc, but in a short 
time disproved this hypothesis because there was no any 
trace of radioactivity in the blocks of limestone. This arti-
cle, too, was followed by a laudatory note31 by her supe-
rior - about as long as the article which preceded it:

“Mademoiselle Mărăcineanu's research on the old 
roofs of the Observatory of Paris is of increasing interest. 
Lead is not the only metal that acquires, under the influ-
ence of the sun’s rays, a special radioactivity…”.32

Dwelling on the more practical aspects of how to 
continue these experiments, Deslandres pointed out that 
the radioactivity - that we can define as induced - was 
not attributable to the diffusion of only radioactive bod-
ies as happened for polonium, but it was an established 
fact that it was a special action of light on matter and 
could be said that it clarified the action of ultra-X rays, 
very penetrating X-rays, whose cosmic origin was dem-
onstrated by Werner Kolhörster (1887- 1946),33 Robert A. 
Millikan (1868-1953) and Russell M. Otis.34



82 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

Deslandres expressed a personal interest in the 
research of his Romanian assistant because it allowed him 
to reminisce over events that had occurred more than 
thirty years before when, in 1896, he had observed the 
emission of particles and X-rays from the sun, the other 
planets, and nebulae. These 19th century works were col-
lected in a monograph35 in precisely the year in which 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu began her collaboration with him. 

Ştefania Mărăcineanu's third article36 in 1927 
appeared on July 11. In this case as well, at the sugges-
tion of Henri Deslandres, she repeated the experiments 
of depositing polonium solutions on 0.1 mm thick lead 
plates. But this time, again at Deslandres’ suggestion, she 
subjected the plates to a potential of 120,000 volts. For 
the occasion, they had to dismantle a large transformer 
that operated the observatory and dedicate it to this use.

After depositing the polonium solution, the experi-
mental samples were divided into four groups:
1. plates not subjected to any potential
2. plates subjected to high voltage only
3. plates subjected to high voltage and solar radiation 

simultaneously 
4. plates subjected only to solar radiation

In these cases, radioactivity was not observed on 
the surfaces of the lead plates not exposed to poloni-
um; despite the fact that an extremely high voltage was 
applied, no nuclear rearrangement could be said to have 
taken place because there was no substantial difference 
between samples 1 and 2 . This was certainly a negative 
result. However, increased radioactivity continued to be 
observed in the samples exposed to the action of sunlight.

For the first time Ştefania Mărăcineanu reported the 
following phenomenon: “It has been observed that the 
ionization current exhibited on the opposite side (of the 
plate) is proportional to the initial amount of polonium 
deposited”.37 

But what is even more surprising is Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu's almost prophetic conclusion. Apparently, 
following the reasoning that she reported in the article, it 
seemed evident that Henri Deslandres, the teacher with 
his “forced suggestion” and counterproductive increase 
in the complexity of the experiments, derailed the entire 
project. 

However Mărăcineanu remained stubbornly faithful 
to her earlier ideas; stripping the experiments bare from 
unnecessary complications derived from sunlight or high 
voltage, she seemed to really observe the phenomenon 
that less than ten years later would take the name of arti-
ficial radioactivity and so she closed the the article with 
the words: 

If we consider the appearance of the curves, the ionization 
current, which increases daily by itself, passes through a 

maximum, then decreases according to an exponential law, 
as happens when a radioactive substance is formed, develops, 
and then decays. I think that a new radioactive substance is 
being formed in the body of the lead.38

Again Henri Deslandres wanted to comment with a 
note on the work of his student.39 Outside of congratu-
lating her and highlighting the enormous importance of 
the subject in the scientific landscape and recognizing its 
extreme complexity, he added almost nothing new.

Meanwhile the alleged discovery of radioactivity 
induced by solar radiation gave Ştefania Mărăcineanu an 
unexpected fame on a global level:40 within a short time 
she became the most famous Romanian scientist in the 
world. The field of radioactivity lent itself to this sort of 
thing: it was a relatively new field of research; it was a 
kingdom ruled by a tiny little woman that she, Marie 
Curie, had created herself and the “world of little nations” 
wanted to have at home a “little Curie,” to pamper and 
show off to exalt their own homegrown glories to their 
citizens. In a late positivist spirit, radium was viewed as an 
instrument of human progress, the weapon to fight can-
cer, which, in the years of industrialization, was defined 
by the late-19th century Pharmacopoeia as the most wide-
spread and insidious disease, which nothing could oppose. 
All this, like a fairy tale, fascinated the public and newspa-
pers competed to bring - often with sensationalist report-
age - the most diverse and contrary reports, both scien-
tific and pseudo-scientific, to the attention of the public. 
Among these they found wide-ranging opportunities in 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu. Already in 1925, during his official 
visit to Paris, King Ferdinand I of Romania (1865-1927) 
and his wife, Queen Marie of Edinburgh (1875-1938), 
invited Ştefania Mărăcineanu to demonstrate her  scien-
tific achievements to them. The queen, impressed by the 
work of her compatriot, took her personal prerogative 
to subsidize her research on chemical transmutation. In 
1929, in Iasi, Ştefania Mărăcineanu received the award in 
memory of the recently-deceased King Ferdinand given 
by the Foundation of the same name.41

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DISCOVERY OF 
CHEMICAL TRANSMUTATION

1928 marked a year of more radical change. In March 
of that year, in fact, Ştefania Mărăcineanu published 
together with her director, Deslandres, a further develop-
ment on the research on this phenomenon.42

From Januar y 20 to Februar y 17, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu exposed to sunlight not only lead, but also 
old copper, aluminum, iron and zinc plates. She repeated, 
in parallel, experiments with other samples of the same 



83Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

elements, but obtained from commercial venues. Only 
lead showed radioactivity. With a complex reasoning 
resulting from a series of measurements, she excluded 
the idea that the specific activation of lead derived from 
a radioactive emanation from the atmosphere (external 
contamination). A careful study of the results led Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu to a suddenly change the ideas that she 
had espoused in the previous summer and she asserted 
instead: “In my experiments on lead, I have always found 
(decay) periods of this order of magnitude and at one 
point I thought of a reintegration of lead into polonium 
by solar energy”.43

In other words, after an understandable hesitancy, 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu, announced that she had observed 
a chemical transmutation process by the action of sun-
light. She reported that this phenomenon could be 
explained if associated with another inexplicable phe-
nomenon, the presence of alpha particles, and the 
appearance of extremely penetrating rays (γ rays, per-
haps, but these are not specifically named).

As a corollary to this controversial hypothesis, 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu speculated that the change in the 
decay constant of polonium was due precisely to this 
phenomenon. This would explain why, four years before, 
she had obtained such a variation in her data. 

A year passed and Ştefania Mărăcineanu left France 
for her native Romania. We do not know the reason for 
this more or less voluntary removal from the observa-
tory at Meudon. In her native country she gave to the 
press an article44 having as its subject the effects of solar 
radiation on radioactive phenomena and transmutation. 
It was work conducted in France, described in sum-
mary in some communications in Comptes Rendus, but 
quoted in full in Romania. If it had been national pride 
or an ill-concealed desire to reduce the effects of a likely 
fiasco that drove Ştefania Mărăcineanu to explicitly pub-
lish the phenomenon of transmutation of the elements 
in a Romanian journal is not known. The fact is that, 
in this work, values were observed in the spectroscope, 
i.e., the appearance of spectral lines, attributable to ele-
ments that would be formed by the transmutation of lead 
explicitly appear. In confirmation of this hypothesis, the 
appearance of helium (alpha particles) and mercury lines 
were observed. In both publications, that of 1928 in the 
Comptes Rendus and that in the Bulletin de la Section de 
l’Academie Scientifique Roumaine, the word transmutation 
is not to be ascribed to an alchemical concept, but to the 
idea of radioactive decay (or its unlikely opposite: “radia-
tive accretion”). If we must impute any kind of an error 
to Mărăcineanu, it would be to have formulated the con-
cept of chemical reversibility in the process of radioactive 
decay, and to accept the fact that lead was not the end of 

the line for the thorium and uranium decay series (that 
includes radium):

Pb + α → Po 
Pb → Hg + α

The extensive work of Ştefania Mărăcineanu con-
sisted of numerous pages and photographs of samples 
taken from  lead roofs that had been exposed for centu-
ries to solar radiation. She took her time about her means 
of investigation, employing a few tricks to enhance the 
observed effect and in the end she added a note in italics 
that could not go unnoticed: 

“The action of solar radiation could possibly cause a 
transmutation of 0.001% lead in gold”.45 

At the end of the article after the usual sentences 
relating to the circumstances of the work that scientists 
always expect, with a little bit discovered and much more 
to do, you can read in ad hoc italics, like a Wagnerian 
finale, the words: 

But it is in solar radiation that one must recognize the phi-
losopher’s stone and the source of formidable radioactive 
energy, which will become needed more and more.46 

The year 1929 opened auspiciously for Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu. Her publications appeared both in Roma-
nia and in France and her work could be said to be truly 
cutting edge. Many scholars began to repeat her experi-
ments, seeking to confirm her observations, but also to 
shed more light on an effect of nature that she had dis-
covered and that she too easily had wished to define 
using such “hot button” words as “transmutation” and 
“philosopher’s stone.”

THE OLYMPIC CALM OF THE EUROPEAN 
COLLEAGUES COMES TO AN END 

By return mail, Professor Nicolae Vasilesco Karpen 
(1870-1964), who a few days earlier had presented 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu's work to the Romanian Acade-
my of Sciences, was forced to report a preliminary note 
under the signatures of Charles Fabry (1867-1945) and 
E. Dubreuil in which the two French physicists expressed 
their censure of tests carried out by the Romanian scien-
tist that they repeated in their Paris laboratory: they were 
the experiments relating to the transmutation of lead into 
gold, mercury, and helium.47 

They pointed out:

The experiments in question were conducted with results 
exactly contrary to those reported by Mlle. Mărăcineanu.48



84 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

That was the first salvo that began to discredit the 
Romanian researcher’s work. Shortly thereafter, she 
was the object of a great deal of criticism for her real or 
alleged discoveries. First the French, and then many oth-
er scientists, began to pour down condemnation on her 
like so many arrows.49

On February 22 of that same year, it was the Direc-
tor of the Institut du Radium herself, Marie Curie, who 
pressed Mlle. Eliane Montel50 (1898-1992) into service 
to investigate the embarrassing phenomenon of induced 
radioactivity discovered in the heart of her own labora-
tory.

Montel studied the evidence in great detail with the 
aid of a rigorous photographic analysis; the methodol-
ogy followed was that of Ştefania Mărăcineanu, but she 
obtained very different results: as Mărăcineanu observed, 
a lead sheet on which was placed a solution of polonium  
hydrochloride exhibited radioactivity after the polonium 
had been removed. However, the radioactivity observed 
was not due to its induction by polonium in the lead as 
Elizabeth Róna (1890-1981) and E.-A. W. Schmidt dem-
onstrated,51 but to its penetration through microscopic 
cracks, between the lead crystals, and conveyed by the 
presence of a weakly acidic environment. This hypoth-
esis was suggested to Eliane Montel by Fernand Holweck 
(1895-1941) and her laboratory subsequently tested it. 
Lead sheets were melted and then cooled so as to obtain 
crystals whose dimensions were visible to the naked eye. 
Then a solution of polonium hydrochloride was depos-
ited on the sheets and their radioactivity was monitored 
photographically. What struck Eliane Montel was that on 
her photographic emulsions she saw the outlines of lead 
crystals, i.e., the regions where the polonium had pen-
etrated them. Eliane Montel asserted without a doubt 
that polonium passed through the lead only in the zones 
which she called “faults.” It was a clear proof that dam-
aged the hypothesis advanced by Ştefania Mărăcineanu 
on induced radioactivity. 

A few months later, on May 25, 1929, the Dutch pro-
fessor A. Smits and his assistant Mlle. Caroline Henriette 
MacGillavry52 (1904-93) published an extensive piece of 
research53 on another aspect of Mărăcineanu’s work: the 
radioactivity of lead induced by solar radiation. Their 
work was conducted on sheets of lead from the roofing of 
the Observatory of Paris as well. The results were encour-
aging and gave confirmation of the comments previously 
made by Ştefania Mărăcineanu.54 

Smits and Mac Gillavry reported the following: 

... these results were perhaps of great importance because if 
the lead really is activated and emits α particles, it is likely 
that there is a transmutation of lead into mercury.55

This was the first, albeit modest, confirmation 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s work outside of French and 
Romanian borders, but it was short-lived. On February 
9, 1930 she wrote from Paris, where she resided at 9 Rue 
Ernest Cresson, to her friend Alexandrina Fălcoianu.56 It 
is an excerpt of a letter that foreshadows possible friction 
between her and her French colleagues: 

I will fight, dear lady, for me, for justice,  the honor of our 
country, and for women.57

A few months later she will have come back to 
Romania for good. In fact, a deed of patent on artificial 
rain, dated June 10, 1930, gives her address as Boulevard 
Col. Mihai Ghica n. 57, Bucharest.

Six days before she drafted the letter to her friend, 
February 3, 1930, the French physicists Charles Fab-
ry and E. Dubreuil officially opened hostilities against 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu and released a statement which 
seriously criticized her work and her heterodox theories. 
The two French colleagues also neglected to mention 
Mărăcineanu’s earlier work that had appeared in the very 
same Comptes Rendus, as well as the encouraging articles 
of the famous astronomer, Deslandres, which had sup-
ported Ştefania Mărăcineanu. Even if they were correct, it 
was a petty attack on a “foreigner” as well as a chauvinis-
tic attempt to make sure that a French institution was not 
tarnished. 

The experimental work was conducted by E. 
Dubreuil at the Institut d’Optique. He had repeated the 
Romanian researcher’s same experiments but ended up 
getting totally negative results, even in the case of lead.

Her reply was swift: seven days later, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu transmitted her reply in the pages of 
Comptes Rendus.58 It was, however, weak both in tone 
and in content. She realized she was a foreigner and 
could not reply to such aggressive criticism in the same 
tone with which she had been attacked. She hypothesized 
that her colleagues, Fabry and Dubreuil, had scraped 
lead from the observatory roof in the precise places 
where she had taken her samples and by so doing, they 
would have analyzed the underlying layer, which had not 
been exposed to sunlight for the centuries to which her 
own samples had been subjected. In addition, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu openly reprimanded Dubreuil, saying that 
when she was at the Institute of Optics, he had provided 
the spectra and had offered to interpret them.

The Romanian researcher acknowledged the negative 
assessment of her work and tried to scientifically coun-
ter the accusations brought against her. If the cause of 
the radioactivity of the lead could be debated and could 
even change her hypothesis, she was firmly convinced 
that her observations were correct so much so that they 



85Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

were confirmed by Professor Smits, the Director of the 
Chemistry Department of the University of Amsterdam. 
As support, Ştefania Mărăcineanu reported some excerpts 
of a personal communication sent to her by Smits which 
confirmed the results that she had arrived at: in the arc 
spectra of lead, the spectral lines of mercury were read-
ily apparent. This evidence could only lead to one con-
clusion: the transmutation of lead into mercury by the 
action of solar radiation. In support of her statement, 
Mărăcineanu emphasized that traces of mercury are 
always in lead and that scientists have always defined this 
fact as a “permanent impurity” without specifying any 
others. Now she, Ştefania Mărăcineanu, could explain this 
presence as the slow transformation of lead into mercu-
ry (with α particle emission) brought about by the pro-
longed action of solar radiation. 

Ştefania Mărăcineanu cited the data of Profes-
sor Smits before their publication: the amount of 
observed alpha particles was equal to impingement of 
1.6 α-particles per second on a surface area of with a 
diameter of 16 cm2. At the conclusion of her article, 
Mărăcineanu summarized her convictions as a challeng-
ing hypothesis: 

Wouldn’t this be the result of a transmutation that has 
moved beyond lead in the periodic series of elements? And is 
radioactivity not a general property of matter?59

But the attack had not been able to direct the French 
colleagues to the pages of a French newspaper that 
appeared with calculated coolness:

I can’t understand how Messrs. M. Fabry and Dureuil 
haven’t found [traces of gold, helium or mercury].60

Ştefania Mărăcineanu had also given some samples of 
lead sheets used for the Meudon Observatory roof lining 
to some French colleagues: Augustine Boutaric61 (1885-
1949) and Mlle. Madeleine Roy62 (1900-40) who conduct-
ed in turn their own personal investigation.63 In addition 
to the samples supplied by the Romanian researcher, the 
two Dijon chemists analyzed lead sheets from old and 
recent roof coverings: the palace of Versailles, the tiles 
donated by the alchemist Mme Mary Dina-Shillito64 
(1876-1938), owner of the Avenières Castle (1050 meters 
above sea level) and even Vallot Observatory on Mont 
Blanc (4362 meters high).

In addition to the lead study they analyzed cladding 
sheets of zinc and copper which, exposed to sunlight, 
would be expected to become radioactive. The Boutar-
ic and Roy results refuted the hypothesis advanced by 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu, according to which lead would not 
be the terminus of the atomic disintegration of all radio-

active decay processes, but simply the next-to-last stop 
before its slow transmutation into Hg. 

Boutaric and Roy put forth three hypotheses:
1. all the metals studied were undergoing a process of 

spontaneous disintegration (presumably emission 
of alpha particles, although these were not expressly 
mentioned in the article)

2. radioactive impurities were present in all their samples
3. radioactive products could accumulate over time in 

the atmosphere (water vapor, fog, rain, snow and ice)
The fact that only the face exposed to the elements 

exhibited radioactivity automatically excluded both the 
first and the second hypothesis. To confirm the third 
hypothesis, the chemists analyzed the stones in the walls 
of the buildings from which the lead was taken and did 
not observe any radioactivity, which they ascribed to the 
slow but continuous disintegration of the lithic material 
through weathering.

Although Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s relationship with 
Smits and MacGillavry was most cordial and collabora-
tive, in her latest work she quoted incorrectly and with-
out permission some data extracted from a personal let-
ter sent by them to her superior, the former Director of 
the Meudon Observatory. Smits and MacGillavry were 
forced to issue a note of reprimand in the Comptes Ren-
dus65 in which they expressed disappointment not only 
about the violation of communications protocol (citing 
publicly a work not intended for publication), but also 
certain doubts about Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s conclusions. 
The two Dutch authors, although they had confirmed the 
radioactivity in the lead exposed to the sun, were not able 
to experimentally determine if that property was indeed 
of extraterrestrial origin or due to a radioactive deposit 
by atmospheric agents. Deslandres, the man to whom 
Smits had sent the letter containing the confidential data, 
the former director of the Observatory, and Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu’s patron, replied by return mail in the pages 
of Comptes Rendus.66 

Far from offering the slightest form of apology, 
she continued to cite Smits’s work as a support for her 
hypothesis, or rather she kept on saying that although the 
action of the sun’s rays were not yet regarded as estab-
lished as the cause of the radioactivity of lead, to her 
way of thinking, it was indisputably the most likely. At 
this point, what we are witnessing in these more recent 
articles, is a fact both objective and sad at the same time: 
the experimental data had been supplanted by a flood of 
words and personal opinions.

To make the situation more problematic, Deslandres 
improperly cited the work of Reboul67 and Pokrovsky68 
regarding the capacity of solar radiation to modify the 
radioactivity of uranium.



86 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

As befits any article which does not conclude with 
the certainty of solid experimental results, this interven-
tion ended with a terse: “It is necessary to wait for further 
study of these facts”.69

Ştefania Mărăcineanu also provided samples of lead 
to other French colleagues, Lepape Adolphe (1886-1977) 
and Marcel Geslin (1894-1962) who immediately carried 
out similar experiments.70 Their investigation was extended 
to other coatings: not only to metals such as lead, copper 
and zinc, but to stone such as slate, as well as the deposits 
left from rainwater in gutters. Their conclusions were posi-
tive; Lepape and Geslin observed in all materials the emis-
sion of penetrating radiation. But the next step threw more 
light on the phenomenon: the dust in the air could have 
been the vehicle of radioactivity, with the help of rainwater.

Ştefania Mărăcineanu, as many often do when find-
ing themselves in unpleasant situations, tried to get out of 
the line of fire by replying jointly to Smits, Boutaric and 
Lepape, with an article in the Bulletin de la Section de 
l’Academie Scientifique Roumaine.71 There were only two 
reasonable ways out: admit error or place the blame on 
others, and she chose the second way. 

She said that from 1895 on, astronomers like Sir Oli-
ver Lodge (1851-1940) in England and Henri Deslandres 
in France had the intuition that the sun emitted “radio-
electric” waves; but Deslandres had gone further and bet-
ter in that regard: in 1898 he proposed the existence of an 
unspecified “penetrating corpuscular radiation” emitted 
by the sun. It was a way to shift many of the shortcom-
ings of her research on her old colleague. But it should 
also be reasonably said that Ştefania Mărăcineanu firmly 
believed in her results and could not accept the simple 
idea that the roof samples she observed had been con-
taminated by radioactive atmospheric dust. Her article 
was a meticulously drawn up objection to her colleagues’ 
data, though not always backed up by thorough research 
and reliable data. In fact, she cited in her favor the 
research of some of her colleagues: Nodon in Bordeaux, 
Fauvot of Courmelle, and Risler and Werner Kolhöster, 
without supplying any bibliographic references. 

On June 11 of that year, Augustine Boutaric and 
Mlle. Madeleine Roy published an article72 in which they 
confirmed the results of Lepape and Geslin: radioactivity 
accumulated on ancient rooftops was due to rainwater. It 
was a simple and effective work. An analysis of the sand 
and charcoal used for making rainwater potable was col-
lected in a closed tank of an old building. They observed 
radioactivity of about the same amount and type found 
in samples exposed to sunlight.

It was the “coup de grace” to the complex theory put 
forth by Mărăcineanu and abundantly supported by old 
Deslandres.

For Ştefania Mărăcineanu it was the beginning of the 
end. After having departed France for good, she com-
pletely abandoned her research on the phenomenon of 
induced radioactivity for a very long period of time.

Eleven years later, smack dab in the middle of World 
War II, José Baltá Elías73 (1893-1973) decided it was time 
to dust off the phenomenon of radioactivity induced by 
solar radiation. He began his research in 1935 but the 
worsening of the Spanish political situation, ensuing in 
civil war, had delayed the publication of his findings for 
six years, by which time international interest in this sub-
ject had waned considerably. The results however, deserve 
to be reported because they contradict both Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu, but also Augustine Boutaric and Mlle. 
Madeleine Roy. In his view, and supported by the highest 
precision instruments, the phenomenon of radioactivity 
induced by solar radiation was not observed for the sim-
ple reason that it did not exist.74 

Heedless of the criticisms that rained down from all 
sides, Ştefania Mărăcineanu published her last work con-
cerning radioactivity and the transmutation of lead. In 
this work, containing repetitive material and lacking even 
a minimal bibliography, she sought to take stock of all 
her previous work on balance:
- As the Joliot-Curie team had discovered artificial 

radioactivity for the light elements, so she had done 
for heavy elements (lead) and Otto Hahn (1879-
1968) for uranium, although this finding is reported 
without any specific notation. She also speculated 
about how it would take place. To do this, she pro-
posed a new mechanism, “chemical transmutation 
for integration.” Alpha particles (positive) expelled by 
polonium would be able to overcome lead’s Coulomb 
barrier since, before the impact with the nucleus, it 
would be subjected to great acceleration due to the 
attractive force of the outer electron cloud of the 
atom.

- And finally, Mărăcineanu suggested a second phe-
nomenon independent of the induced radioactivity 
in the lead, but still a property of the same element: 
the lead, in itself, would encounter a very slow pro-
cess of radioactive decay with the formation of mer-
cury. She estimated a very long half life for the lead, 
of the order of 1027 years.

Current observations suggest that the age of the 
universe is about 13,799,000,000 years (1.3799 × 1010 
years),75 with an uncertainty of about 21 million years. 
The figures provided by Mărăcineanu are not accom-
panied by any supporting experimental data. Her esti-
mate is totally unreliable and can only serve to put the 
researcher in an even worse light. Since this estimated 



87Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

time period was too large to cause the spontaneous trans-
mutation mercury, even the author of the article, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu had to come to the conclusion that lead 
would be a metastable element and external agents such 
as sunlight could accelerate the spontaneous process by 
a factor of 1029. In point of fact, the decay period would 
change from 1027 years to only 200 days.

BIOGRAPHY 

Ştefania was born June 17, 1882 in Bucharest and her 
birth was added to the official registry the next day by 
her 20-year-old father, Sebastian Mărăcineanu.

Very few details of her childhood have been found. 
What we do know is that they were not happy years; 
Ştefania did not like to talk about them. In 1907, she 
enrolled at the Facultatea de ştiinţe a Universităţii din 
Bucureşti where, three years later, she received a doctor-
ate in the chemical and physical sciences.76 She followed 
courses in pedagogy for a short period and, in 1914, she 
passed the qualifying examination that permitted her to 
teach in secondary schools. She was present in Bucha-
rest, teaching at the “Şcoala Centrală” during the Aus-
tro-German invasion of 1916. After the conclusion of 
World War I, she obtained a scholarship and went to the 
Institut du Radium in Paris, where she worked on and 
off until 1925.77 Meanwhile, she had enrolled at the Sor-
bonne for a research PhD, which she obtained in 1924. 
Returning to Romania in 1925, the Faculty of Science at 
the University of Bucharest gave her a post as assistant 
instructor. However, in that same year, she returned to 
Paris for four years, working at the Astronomical Obser-
vatory of Meudon.

In 1929 we find Ştefania Mărăcineanu back once 
again in Romania. In that year, she had the opportunity 
to hold a conference on the constitution of matter at the 
“Şcoala Centrală de fete” that she subsequently repeat-
ed at the “Universitară Carol I.”78 It was printed79 and it 
served as the nucleus of a manual on radioactivity that 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu would write some years later.80

When in 1929 she returned to Romania for good, 
perhaps in response to criticism leveled at her for her 
improbable discoveries, Ştefania Mărăcineanu installed, 
manned and directed the first laboratory for the study of 
radioactive substances in Romania.

Meanwhile, on January 15, 1934, Irène and Frédérick 
Joliot-Curie announced the results of their experiments 
and shocked the world with their discovery: artificial 
radioactivity. With uncommon haste, the Nobel Commit-
tee awarded them the Nobel Prize in chemistry the fol-
lowing year.

In early June of 1934, Irène Joliot-Curie, after hav-
ing brought her terminally ill mother to the sanatorium 
of Sancellemoz in the Haute Savoy, traveled to Vienna to 
hold a conference hosted by the famous physicist Stefan 
Meyer (1872-1949).

On June 5, 1934 in the Neues Wiener Journal, an 
article appeared that reported excerpts of that confer-
ence, including anecdotes, bits of the animated discus-
sions with colleagues, the opera galas, and interviews 
with journalists. Among the latter, the name of Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu was mentioned, and the enlightening con-
tribution to understanding this new physical phenom-
enon of this relatively unknown researcher was empha-
sized.81

It was a Romanian, Miss Mărăcineanu, who a few years ago 
was probably the first one to observe that non-radioactive 
elements could be made radioactive under certain conditions, 
meaning they emit radiation similar to the type which, until 
now, has been only observed for the few radioactive elements.

It was the only recognition, albeit marginal, that 
Marie Curie’s daughter was willing to give to the Romani-
an researcher. On November 29, 1935, eleven days before 
Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband received the Nobel 
Prize from the hands of the king of Sweden, in Romania, 
Nicolae Vasilescu-Karpen82 (1870-1964) gave a lecture 
at the Academy of Romanian Science entitled: Radioac-
tivitatea artificială şi lucrări româneşti în acest domeniu83 
with clear allusions to the work of Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s 
unique research done years earlier.

On June 24, 1936, Ştefania Mărăcineanu officially 
asked the Academy of Sciences of Romania to support 
her officially and to recognize the priority of her work. 
Her request was granted and in 1937 she was elected a 
corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of 
Romania, and two years later Sefa de lucrări, i.e., Director 
of Research.

In a letter preserved at the Academy of Sciences, 
Mărăcineanu, wrote a strongly critical version of the 
events that took place in Paris in the early twenties, while 
Marie Curie was still living:

Nu contest premiul Nobel soţilor Curie Joliot pentru 
perfecţionarea ce au adus în această descoperire ca metode 
de investigaţie, punere în evidenţă a fenomenului şi chiar 
pentru aporturi noui. Cer însă să mi se recunoască rolul 
ce am avut în această descoperire. Am fost prima care am 
îndrăsnit să anunţ acest fenomen în 1924,când părea o 
nebunie.
Aceiaş metodă a întrebuinţat şi D-na Joliot Curie la începu-
tul cercetărilor D-sale. ... Singura deosebire consista în faptul 
că D-sa aşeza foiţa metalică peste poloniu iar eu depuneam 
polonium pe foiţa metalică.



88 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

D-na Pierre Curie nu mi-a permis a da această explicaţie 
în teza de doctorat şi mia spus: vom continua lucrarea şi va 
figura şi numele d-tale. Am făcut totuşi rezerve în teza de 
doctorat. […] Imediat după obţinerea gradului de Doctor am 
publicat pe propria mea răspundere la Academia Română…84

By 1941 Ştefania Mărăcineanu was 59 years old and 
was nearing the end of her life and just in time to be 
appointed Associate Professor. It would be her last per-
sonal “victory,” as documented in several passages taken 
from letters addressed to colleagues. She spent much of 
her time in the laboratory, in a workplace which she had 
personally built at the cost of great sacrifice:

... Laboratorul acesta este viaţa mea,de care nu m’aş putea 
despărţi de cât când n’aş mai fi.85

From personal sources, it can be clearly seen that the 
final days of the scientific collaboration between Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu and Marie Curie was not painless:

A fost o persecuţie şi o opoziţie care m’a urmărit pas cu pas, 
de când am rupt cu Institutul de Radium pe chestia dreptu-
lui meu.86

For as long as she lived, the (Romanian) Academy 
denied her the highest recognition by not creating a pro-
fessorship of radiochemistry.

This could have been due to the concurrent politi-
cal situation. The follies and the horrors of the despotic 
regime of King Carol II (1893-1953) of Romania led him 
to accede to, in 1940, the triple dismemberment of his 
kingdom.87 When, in June of 1941, General Ion Anto-
nescu (1882-1946) threw Romania into the war against 
the Soviet Union, many Romanians were happy about 
it. What attracted them was not only the possibility of 
regaining the lost province of Bessarabia, but the pros-
pect that the uncomfortably neighboring and powerful 
Russian State, a constant threat to national integrity for 
over twenty years, would be destroyed. That thousands 
of persons would be sent to their slaughter on the battle-
fields of Odessa, Sebastopol, Stalingrad, and the Cauca-
sus, although appalling, ultimately did not seem to matter 
very much.

For Ştefania Mărăcineanu the news that arrived on 
June 20, 1942 was the prelude to the end of her career; the 
Ministry of Culture announced its decision to relieve her 
of her position by reason of age, effective October 1, 1942.

Her retirement would be neither a long nor happy 
one. She undertook volunteer work at a hospital, at Câm-
pulug Muscel, in the Muntenia region, but at the same 
time she continued to devote herself to various scientific 
issues that were dear to her heart.

On February 5, 1943, Ştefania Mărăcineanu sent a 
communication to the Academy of Sciences of Romania, 
entitled “Artifical Rain During the Drought Year of 1942.” 
It would be her last work; she took care to assure her aca-
demic colleagues that her data were officially recorded. 
However, with the country at war and all that followed 
from that, the work was never published. 

Simultaneously with the worsening of the war 
against the Soviet Union, Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s health 
continued to deteriorate. She had been certifiably ill 
from cancer for quite some time, undoubtedly caused 
by long and unprotected exposure to nuclear radiation. 
She died on August 15, 1944 in Bucharest, two weeks 
before the Soviets invaded the city which was devastated 
by U.S. air strikes and direct fire from Russian artillery 
in the front line. As a result, the documents concern-
ing Mărăcineanu’s death were destroyed. Her last resting 
place, along with many other Romanian personages, is 
the Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest.88

Although some historians record her date of death as 
March 18, 1947, and the place of burial Bellu cemetery, 
in fact, neither this nor the previous data were confirmed 
by the “Consiliul General Municipuli Bucuresti.” The 
only burial documents on file in the monumental cem-
etery is related to a certain Ştefan Mărăcineanu, who died 
March 18, 1944. Ironically, the authenticity of Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu’s discoveries as well as the circumstances 
surrounding her end, are still a topic of discussion.

CONCLUSION:  COULD THE ALPHA RADIATION 
EMITTED BY POLONIUM ACTIVATE LEAD? 

Leaving aside any quantum interaction, “tunneling,” 
or short-range effects, but maintaining a purely determin-
istic perspective, it may be assumed that:

The minimum kinetic energy required for an alpha 
particle to diminish the distance between itself and the 
lead nucleus, equal to or less than the sum of their nucle-
ar radii, is obtained as a simple interaction between two 
charged particles which are acted on only by the Cou-
lombic force.

Cross sections (σ) for inelastic scattering of α par-
ticles on lead are not reported in the literature, but the 
energies of α particles emitted by polonium are known to 
be about 5 MeV.89

In the case of bombardment of a lead target (Pb) 
with alpha particles (He), the barrier (determinable in 
MeV) is given by the approximate formula:

0.9⋅Z1 ⋅Z2
A13 A23

 (1)



89Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

where Z1 and Z2 are the atomic numbers of the two ele-
ments and A1 and A2 are the atomic masses of the inter-
acting nuclei.

The value obtained is about 20 MeV, or about four 
times the energy of alpha particles emitted by isotopes of 
Po, and therefore a simple calculation excludes alpha par-
ticle activation of lead by that source. In fact, recent work 
shows that lead activation can occur with alpha particles 
with energies of about 40 MeV,90 or even 30 MeV.91

However, relying purely on classical physics, the 
theoretical results can have different values from those 
observed in the laboratory by a factor of ten. Having 
recourse to quantum mechanics can help the investiga-
tor explain how some phenomena can happen when a 
deterministic calculation predicts that they are forbidden. 
In fact, a not so simple quantum calculation permits, for 
a sufficiently short period of time, that an alpha parti-
cle can have a much greater kinetic energy than normal 
because of the tunneling effect, provided that Heisen-
berg’s uncertainty principle

ΔEΔt ≥
!
2

 (2)

is not violated. Therefore, it would be theoretically possi-
ble that an alpha particle with an energy of about 5 MeV 
could overcome the Coulomb barrier between itself and 
a lead nucleus, thus giving rise to the latter’s activation as 
allegedly observed by Ştefania Mărăcineanu.

However, it should be mentioned that Enrico Fermi 
(1901-54), in his work on slow neutron bombardment of 
a large number of known elements, did not observe the 
activation phenomenon for lead.92

In the end, in the case of the “official” discovery of 
artificial radioactivity by Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie 
at the beginning of 1934, an aluminum foil was bom-
barded with alpha particles from a radium source with 
energies of about 4.6 MeV.93 In this case, Eq. 1 would give 
an approximate result as 4.8 MeV.

In light of our current knowledge of the physics of 
cosmic rays and on the basis of the work appearing in the 
literature,94 cosmic rays would have been able to induce 
radioactivity in the lead nuclei. But since all the substanc-
es present in the lead were exposed to the cosmic rays as 
well, then they all should have become radioactive, which 
we know is not the case. Cosmic rays, or rather cosmic 
radiation, is a shower of high-energy particles arriv-
ing from outer space. It is very different from the alpha 
and beta radiation emitted by radioactive nuclei. When 
the primary radiation coming from space interacts with 
the atoms and molecules of the atmosphere, it produces 
swarms (a sort of decay) of secondary particles, some of 
which may reach Earth. The primary cosmic rays have 

much higher energies than those in play in the decay 
of the radioactive substances, while secondary swarms 
have much lower energy, but higher than those required 
for activation of the lead and through which Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu may have observed this phenomenon. But 
it must be said that the flow of secondary particles that 
reach sea level is very low; only one particle per cm2 per 
minute. This heterogeneous mix of modern data and 
those reported in the 1920s and 1930s shows that it is 
impossible to treat them strictly quantitatively. Therefore, 
it is not possible to give a clear assessment of the reli-
ability of the investigations conducted by Mărăcineanu. 
It is not possible to make clear-cut, definitive judgment, 
although Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s hypothesis was possibly 
derived from erroneous experimental data or certainly by 
poor interpretation of them.

On the other hand, it is possible to point to an objec-
tive piece of data, about which Romanian historians are 
very insistent: how Ştefania Mărăcineanu was removed 
from Marie Curie’s entourage and how some members 
of the Institut du Radium openly condemned and refuted 
her work.

But not only that. These historians claim that the 
results were stolen from Mărăcineanu, at night, when, for 
a reason not specified, she was not at home. Romanian 
sources make mention also of a great scandal and a sub-
sequent lawsuit that involved her and the Curie family. If 
we follow these allegations to their appropriate conclu-
sion, the chair at the University of Bucharest that would 
be given to Ştefania Mărăcineanu would be at the price 
of her silence. But all these statements, with no support-
ing documentation, are nothing but speculations, incipi-
ent libel. If they actually existed, they would deserve to be 
studied thoroughly and objectively.

To date, the only evidence proving the hostile resent-
ment of the “clan Curie” against Ştefania Mărăcineanu 
is in a document produced by the latter; in a letter 
addressed by the Romanian researcher to Lise Meitner 
on March 12, 1936 and found in the Meitner Files of 
Churchill College Archives (Cambridge), she wrote:95

Madame,
J’ai présenté au mois de février mes travaux sur la Radio-
activité artificielle à l’appréciation de la Science allemande. 
Vous éte une autorité dans la spécialité et votre opinion la 
dessus comptera beaucoup. J’espère que les travaux vous ont 
été déjà présentées par qui de droit. 
Madame, je ne demande pas une faveur, mais seulement96 la 
justice et je fais chaleureusement 
appel à vôtre97 esprit de “équité” et a vôtre amour pour la sci-
ence.
Je ne demande pas à tenir les lauriers de M.me Joliot-Curie; 
mais je demande seulement que l’on reconnaisse la part que 
j’ai joué au début de cette découverte et que l’on contrôle aus-



90 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

si la question de la pluie artificielle. J’ai vu qu’en France on 
commence à parler aussi de cette question sans mentionner 
mes expériences dans cette direction. 
Madame, vous avez été connue moi dans l’élève de M.me 
Curie, je ne sais pas de quelle manière M.me regarderez cette 
question; dans tous les cas, je vous prie beaucoup de ne pas 
en parler au M.me J. Curie. Ne pas lui écrire que je me suis 
adressée aussi à vous. Elle ne m’aime pas et elle s’appuye98 sur 
une group organisation très puissante judéo-massonique.99 
Elle est communiste.100 M[’]en parle ici, je la croyons,101 car 
j’ai eu l’occasion de sentir sa puissance. Seulement en Alle-
magne on pourrait me rendre raison.
Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame, l’expression de mes salutations 
très distinguées,
Dr. Stéphanie Mărăcineanu102

It was known that at the Institut du Radium, there 
was competition among the scientists, not only present, 
but downright encouraged. It was compounded by the 
alleged disparities in the treatment of some of its mem-
bers at the expense of others. Not surprisingly, people 
grumbled about the special treatment that Mme. Curie 
had reserved for her daughter.103

Ştefania Mărăcineanu did not belong to the Curie 
family circle and, moreover, she was a foreigner. The 
same adjective with which Mme. Curie had been labeled 
at the beginning of the century, before marrying a 
Frenchman (and university professor), then, widowed, 
and then trying to steal a married woman’s husband. 
Yet, the insidious poison of xenophobia with which she 
was greeted in France by the most reactionary fringe of 
the country turned into a paternalistic scientific nepo-
tism towards her daughter, who was assured - according 
to some – a too rapid career at the Institute which she 
directed. Regarding the more personal, Marie became 
extremely jealous: the most prestigious discoveries in the 
field of radioactivity could not but be due - as if it were 
by right of blood – to any other than a member of her 
family. And so it seemed regarding the discovery of arti-
ficial radioactivity in 1934: a milestone in the study and 
understanding of atomic nuclei.

When a great discovery reaches its fiftieth or  hun-
dredth anniversary, it is usually remembered with great 
celebration in the country that boasts of being the birth-
place of the discoverer and recognizes him/her first as 
their own child and then as a their teacher. If the coun-
try is really great, it organizes a conference where scholars 
discuss the discovery, and commissions documentaries on 
the life of this man or woman of science. This is exactly 
what happened in 1984 for the celebration of the fiftieth 
anniversary of the discovery of artificial radioactivity.104

When the discovery involves a minor character, may-
be embarrassing or in a marginal country, often we limit 
ourselves to a biographical retrospective, perhaps out of 

a condescending gallantry, not wanting to point out the 
inadequacy of the small country or the mediocre scien-
tist compared to such a great discovery: in fact, because 
of ingrained prejudice, the discovery is assumed to be less 
influential.

In our study, however, elements of judgment are 
mixed up with the most insidious and agonizing doubts: 
did Ştefania Mărăcineanu actually discover induced radio-
activity? To this question we can answer with certainty: no.

But it might be better to reformulate a more complex 
question thus: when Ştefania Mărăcineanu announced 
her discovery was it reasonable to consider her correct?

Although it may seem counterintuitive, with what 
was written a moment ago, the answer is: yes.

Therefore, we could sense a certain “stink of persecu-
tion” in her regard and so feel first hand “the ostracism 
assigned to her by Mme Curie.” The same aloofness that 
Marie experienced as a student would then be ascribed to 
her students when she became a professor, and Romanian 
historians perhaps too often tend to emphasize this.

An objective fact, already well documented, is the 
decline of French science (chemistry105 and physics) 
between the two world wars. It can be said that most of 
French science was addressed by leading ideas coming 
from Paris and in Paris there were the so-called Tetrar-
chs: Marie Curie, for Radioactivity; Paul Langevin for 
Theoretical Physics; Jean Perrin (1870-1942) for Physi-
cal Chemistry; Georges Urbain (1872-1938) for General 
Chemistry and Mineralogy. All these famous people, as 
well as being linked by having maintained relationships 
with their own subordinates or colleagues,106 had strongly 
authoritarian, if not downright despotic, personalities.107

Let’s not dwell too much on the details of events that 
could simply be traced to adulterous characters in the 
public eye, but this point of view is also very important, 
not merely voyeuristic, because it solidifies with uncom-
mon clarity a bond, sometimes ideological, sometimes 
loaded with political and social tensions, that allows us 
to appreciate yet more the strength and power of these 
“masters of French science.”108

After the death of Marie Curie, direction of the Insti-
tut du Radium passed to André Debierne (1874-1949), 
who had, in common with many of his colleagues, the 
dubious repute of observing physical or chemical phe-
nomena that do not exist, for example, the frigdaréction 
a supposed nuclear reaction that would take place at tem-
peratures of the order of -200 °C. 

As another example, Georges Urbain posited a unify-
ing theory of organic chemistry with mineral or inorgan-
ic chemistry109 (Homéomérie) on a basis so qualitative 
and so simplistic as to be already obsolete at the time of 
its publication, so much so that no one ever considered it. 



91Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

His many colleagues and disciples were careful to men-
tion it only at the time of drawing up his numerous obit-
uaries.110

Finally Jean Perrin, a sacred cow of French science: 
Ministre de la Troisième République, founder of CNRS 
(Centre national de la recherche scientifique), the father 
of the atom, Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1926, between 
the end of World War I and the early 1920s put forth - 
with stolid determination - the fallacious radiative the-
ory, according to which every chemical reaction would 
be caused by luminous radiation and its kinetic energy 
would be determined by the intensity of said radiation.111 
Perrin, in addition to being the author of erroneous 
assumptions, was the mentor of two famous physicists, 
Yvette Cauchois (1908-1999) and Horia Hulubei (1896-
1972) who, in turn, announced the discovery of three 
nonexistent chemical elements: sequanium, dor, and mol-
davium.112

When, in the early 1920s, Ştefania Mărăcineanu 
arrived in Paris, we are no longer in the Belle Epoque, 
where the capital was one of the driving forces of an 
enthusiastic confidence in the future, nurtured by con-
tinuous discoveries and inventions, regularly augmented 
by recurring expositions. We could advance the hypoth-
esis that the environment of the chemists and physcists 
in France in those years113 could have stimulated students 
and researchers over a healthy competition in the search 
for new physical phenomena and that this research has 
turned into obsession of wanting to discover something 
new at any cost, thus committing inevitable blunders. If 
an Urbain was driven to do this to refresh his fame in a 
futile attempt to bring down upon himself the attention 
of the Nobel Foundation, for Ştefania Mărăcineanu, we 
could talk about self-deception.114

The illusion of finding oneself before a vast unex-
plored ocean that represented the ultimate structure 
of matter and to be able to scrape together a few more 
great experimental discoveries escaped the scrutiny of the 
great scientists of the previous generation. But Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu’s flaw, like many researchers formed at the 
Institut du Radium, was that although they belonged to 
the generation following that of Marie Curie, continued 
to remain mentally contemporary, unable to grasp many 
of those discoveries that would have been the preserve 
of scientists more cosmopolitan: in the U.S., Britain, and 
Germany. Because ultimately Ştefania Mărăcineanu, com-
ing from a peripheral and marginal country in terms of 
the international scientific scene, had acquired French 
know-how when it was at its lowest point at the inter-
national level. For example, Jean Perrin, the undisputed 
head of French physical chemistry between the two world 
wars, forbade publication of any article on quantum 

mechanics in the journals he directly or indirectly con-
trolled.115

On the one hand we have the characters (Curie 
and Perrin to name only two) so famous that they have 
become monuments of our cultural history that the very 
idea of attacking them frightens us. Yet we have to pull 
together the threads of this story.

For a long time a misunderstanding has surrounded 
the figure of Ştefania Mărăcineanu as if the glow of the 
flames burning Bucharest in her long siege, had clouded 
her virtues as a scientist and the city collapsing into ruin 
deleted along with her true and presumed discoveries 
its anti-Semitism and adherence to an authoritarian fas-
cist regime, which it was replacing bloodily with a long 
communist dictatorship. It is difficult in this climate to 
move important details out of the shadows, like the fact 
that in her narrow view of the physical world, Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu, saw too many phenomena being derived 
from or, ultimately, due to radioactivity. Certainly to 
Ştefania Mărăcineanu it was not an easy life, but it should 
be added that when, in 1929, she returned to Romania, 
she did not stop to making an “incendiary tour” wherev-
er she went, thundering against her old mentor and, after 
her death, against her daughter.

Her improbable discoveries of the 1920s were side 
by side, a decade later, with others: she wanted to see a 
correlation between exposure of radioactive substances 
to air and the formation of storm clouds or earthquakes. 
It was almost a leap of faith, made with an old national-
istic spirit of science in spite of the continued declining 
times; World War II was unveiling its monstruous dimen-
sions and its obscene ideology leading to the extermina-
tion of men, women, old people, and children, using in 
all this the only too willing and zealous men of science. It 
is a situation in which Mărăcineanu took part, against her 
will, at the end of her life: a military conflict, the political 
and cultural identity, which has destroyed the conscience 
of a generation of her scientific peers.

At a time when all the characters seem to “shout and 
no one listens to the other’s voice,” we can only conclude 
that stories like these are - in our opinion – an incompa-
rable antidote to the temptation of writing scientific hagi-
ographies.116 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank Mr. Adrian Tudoroiu, 
Doctors Alessandro Ciandella, Dina Scarpi, Roberto 
di Camillo and Stefano Fedeli, Professors Roberto Livi, 
Andrea Stefanini and Massimo Chiari for their help in 
the preparation of the present work. 



92 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

A simple thank you cannot express the immeasur-
able help from the personnel of the Biblioteca del Polo 
Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino in the persons of Laura 
Guarnieri, Serena Terzani, Sabina Cavicchi, Marzia Fior-
ini, Sabrina Albanese and Angela Landolfi, as well as the 
Archives Assistants Julia Schmidt and Heidi Egginton of 
the Churchill College Archives Centre (Cambridge, UK). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.  Greater Romania, which assumed the name of Roma-
nia between 1918 and 1940. In 1918, Romania was 
defeated by the Austro-Germans but actually won 
the war. It participated with the winners in the par-
tition of the territories of both its Austro-Hungarian 
enemy as well as of its Russian ally. The only coun-
try that had its territory doubled by the terms of the 
Peace of Versailles, Romania basically had designs on 
establishing its hegemony over the entire area of the 
Lower Danube. But it made the error of overestimat-
ing its own strength, leading to the failure of its more 
ambitious ideas and to a foreign policy that struggled 
mightily to forge its own path in a post-World War I 
Europe, skirting both integration and a less-welcome 
annexation, thus paralyzing its internal politics for 
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2. M. Popescu, M.F. Rayner-Canham, G.W. Rayner-
Canham, “Stefania Mărăcineanu: Ignored Romanian 
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3. I.N. Iacovachi, Noesis, No. 10, 1984; M. Rogai, Eveni-
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4. M. Rogai, Formula AS, nr. 928, 2010.
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Canham, “Stefania Mărăcineanu: Ignored Romanian 
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6. I. Langmuir, “Colloquium on Pathological Science”, 
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recorded transcript was produced by Langmuir a few 

months later. See also: I. Langmuir, Physics Today, 
1989, 42, Issue 10, October, pp.36–48.

7. The alleged discoveries relating to artificial rain 
induced by radioactive substances and the link 
between radioactivity and earthquakes, as we shall 
see, were not refuted presumably for two reasons: 
the announcements were made in minor scientific 
journals, in the middle of World War II; in addition, 
Mărăcineanu  died shortly after the publication of 
these works.

8. J.-P. Adloff, G. B. Kauffman,  Chem. Educator, 2008, 
13, 318-325.

9. www.segretidipulcinella.it/sdp24/temp_02.htm, last 
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Cultura Varia, numero 24.

10. G. Steinhauser, G. Loeffler, R. Adunka, J. Radioanal. 
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11. Romanian historian, politician, and man of letters. 
President of the Council between 1931-32, he was 
also adviser to King Carol II (1893-1953). For rea-
sons of cultural affinity, he was fascinated by Italy, 
although not an admirer of Benito Mussolini (1883-
1945) and fascism. He was rather suspicious of Soviet 
and German hegemonic designs on his country and 
because of his firm opposition to the Romanian gov-
ernment’s pro-Nazi policy, he was assassinated by ele-
ments of the radically fascist “Iron Guard” in 1940.

12. Professor Ing. Dănuţ Şerban’s website: http://www.
stefania-maracineanu.ro/; last access 06/12/2016.

13. The half life, T1/2, and the decay constant, λ, are 
often used interchangeably; they are related by T1/2 = 
0.693/λ.

14. M.E. Wieser (2006). IUPAC Technical Report, Pure 
and Applied Chemistry, 2005, 78(11), 2051–2066; G. 
Audi, A. H. Wapstra, C. Thibault, J. Blachot, O. Ber-
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CRC Press. p. 11-50.

15. M. Curie, C.R., 1906, 142, 273; Rutherford,  E., Phil. 
Mag. 1905, 10, 290; Marckwald W., Jahr. d. Rad., 
1905, 136; Meyer, von Sweidler, Wien Ber., 1906, 115, 
63;  Regener, Ber. der D. Physik Ges., 1911, 13, 1027.

16. This precaution was considered necessary because of 
the extreme difficulty in the treatment of polonium. 
One milligram of the isotope 210Po (the only one 
manageable because the other four isotopes’ half lives 
were too short), emits the same number of alpha 



93Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

particles as five grams of radium. In the process of 
decay, polonium-210 also releases a large amount of 
energy.

17. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1925, 774.
18. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1926, 345.
19. “On aurait pu croire à une pénétration du poloni-

um d’une face a l’autre du plomb; mais dans ce cas 
on aurait dù avoir une forte perte de polonium à 
l’intérieur du blomb, ce qui n’a pas été constaté…”

20. “…semblent inique que le rayonnement solaire peut 
provoquer la réintégration du Radium-E [Bi] a partir 
du Radium-F [Po], et donc una reversibilité dans la 
série radiactive”

21. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1927, 1322.
22. Madame Curie was a combative woman and so sure 

of herself that she never gave way in debate, even 
when fraught with a possible acrimonious aftermath. 
She savagely attacked both Willy Marckwald and Sir 
William Ramsay when they committed egregious 
errors in the field of radioactivity. The two colleagues 
harbored bitter memories of this incredible woman’s 
stubborn tenacity. It seems very strange that Marie 
Curie did not openly take a position on this mat-
ter, which was nurtured under her own roof. See M. 
Fontani, M. Costa, M. V. Orna, “The Lost Elements: 
the Periodic Table’s Shadow Side”, Oxford University 
Press (2015), p.  471-475.

23. The Institute of Radium, according to Bertrand 
Goldschmidt (1912-2002), one of the last students 
to have known her personally, was ruled despoti-
cally and with certain inclinations toward nepo-
tism by Marie Curie. After her death, André Debi-
erne (1874-1949), the new director, had repeatedly 
clashed with her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-
1956). The following anecdote is worth quoting as 
an explanatory example: “During one disagreement, 
when Irène objected to the appointment of Bertrand 
Goldschmidt to a position she believed belonged to 
someone else, Debierne retorted ‘Goldschmidt pos-
sesses a quality that ALL the others do not have - he 
did not work with your mother. Now get out of here!’ 
“ Goldschmidt, B. Atomic rivals. Rutgers University 
Press, New Brunswick & London; 1990, page 19. 

24. Marie Curie’s granddaughter, Hélène Joliot, was born 
on September 17, 1927 and at 21 years of age, she 
married Michel Langevin, the grandson of her grand-
mother’s lover, Paul Langevin (1872-1946).

25. “a midi, quand le Soleil darde sur l’appareil, le plomb 
semble devenir deux fois plus active…”

26. It is not clear what lead compounds might have been 
formed; their identities would certainly depend upon 
the acid used. It is also not clear if the lead com-

pound thus formed were reduced by experiment to 
elemental lead prior to testing.

27. “Le plomb du commerce, préparé toujours avec la 
galéne, n’est pas, comme on sait, radioactif…”

28. H. Deslandres, C.R., 1927, 1324.
29. “Les persone qui ont du plomb longtemps insolé, et 

qui n’ont pas appareils nécessaires à la recherche de la 
radioactivité, sont priées d’en envoyer un échantillon 
à l’Observatorie de Paris”.

30. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1927, 1547.
31. H. Deslandres, C.R., 1927, 1549.
32. “Les recherches de Mlle Mărăcineanu sur le toi-

tures anciennes de l’Observatorie de Paris offrent un 
intérêt de plus en plus grand. Le plomb n’est pas le 
seul métal qui acquiere, sous l’influence des rayons 
solaires, une radioactivité spéciale…”.

33. W. Kolhorster, Physikalische Zeitschrift, 1914, 14, 
1153; W. Kolhorster, Naturwissenschaften, 1926, 14, 
290.

34. R.A. Millikan, R. M. Otis, Physical Review, 1926, 27, 
645.

35. H. Deslandres, C.R., 1922, 622. 
36. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1927(II), 122.
37. “On a vu que le courant d’ionisation donné par la 

côte opposé est proportionel à la valeur initiale du 
polonium déposé”.

38. “Si l’on considère l’allure des cuorbes, ce courant 
d’ionisation qui augmente chaque jour de lui-même 
passe par un maximum, descend ensuite d’après une 
loi explonetielle, ainsi qu’il se passe, quand une sub-
stance radioactive prend naissance, se développe et se 
detruit, je pense qu’il y a formation d’une substance 
radioactive nouvelle dans la masse du plomb”.

39. H. Deslandres, C.R., 1927(II), 124.
40. The Argus, 1927 August 6, Saturday, No. 25269, p. 

10, Australia, Melbourne; Kalgoorlie Miner, 1927 
August 15, Monday, Vol. 33, no. 8680, p. 1, Australia, 
Kalgoorlie; The Canberra Times Week-End Edition, 
1927 August 19, Friday, Vol. I, no. 67, p. 12, Aus-
tralia, Canberra; The Border Watch, 1927 August 20, 
Saturday, Vol. LXV, no. 6661, p. 2, Australia, Mount 
Gambier; The Western Argus, 1927 August 23, Tues-
day, Vol. 34, no. 1937, p. 2, Australia, Kalgoorlie; The 
Daily News, 1927 August 30, Tuesday, Vol. XLVI, 
no. 16.329, p. 9, Australia, Perth; The Evening Post, 
1927 September 10, Saturday, Vol. CIV, no. 62, p. 13, 
New Zealand, Wellington; The Geraldton Guardian, 
1927 September 17, Saturday, Vol. XXI, no. 4743, p. 
1, Australia, Geraldton. Professor Ing. Dănuţ Şerban’s 
website: http://www.stefania-maracineanu.ro/; last 
access 06/12/2016.

41. Professor Ing. Dănuţ Şerban’s website: http://www.



94 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

stefania-maracineanu.ro/; last access 06/12/2016.
42. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1928(II), 746.
43. “Si l’on considère l’allure des cuorbes, ce courant 

d’ionisation qui augmente chaque jour de lui-même 
passe par un maximum, descend ensuite d’après une 
loi explonetielle, ainsi qu’il se passe, quand une sub-
stance radioactive prend naissance, se développe et se 
detruit, je pense qu’il y a formation d’une substance 
radioactive nouvelle dans la masse du plomb”.

44. Ş. Mărăcineanu, Bullettin de la Section Scientifique de 
l’Academie Roumaine, 1929, 12, 5.

45. “L’action du raynonnament solaire porrai peu-être 
provoquer une transmutation del 0,001% plomb en 
or”.

46. “Mais c’est dans les radioations solaires qu’on doit 
voire la pierre philosophale et la source de la formi-
dabile énergie radioactive, don’t la necéssité s’impose 
et s’imposera de plus en plus”.

47. N. Vasilesco Karpen, Bullettin de la Section Scienti-
fique de l’Academie Roumaine, 1929, 12, 60.

48. “Les expériences en question ont conduit à des résu-
ltats exactement contraires à ceux indiqués par M-lle  
Mărăcineanu”.

49. It is not inconceivable that the French physicists were 
particularly “sensitive” to a similar subject, whose 
only result could only lead to the accusation patho-
logical science. The unfortunate incident relating to 
Nancy rays or “N” rays was a blow to the pride of 
French science, whose ghost had to be still very pre-
sent in their minds. Regarding this see: Nye, M. J., 
Historical studies in the physical sciences, 1980, 11(1), 
125.

50. She was a French chemist and physicist. On the rec-
ommendation of the physicist, Paul Langevin in 1926 
she arrived at the Curie Institut du Radium labora-
tory as an “aide-bénévole” (a volunteer) and then the 
following year became a “travailleur libre” (independ-
ent collaborator). She became Paul Langevin’s lover 
twenty years after he had had a turbulent affair with 
Marie Curie, and she remained faithful to him, espe-
cially in the period of his exile in Troyes during the 
war. From their relationship, Paul Gilbert Langevin 
(1933-86) was born.

51. E. Róna, E.-A.W. Schmidt, Wien. Ber., 1927, 136, 65.
52. She was a Dutch chemist and crystallographer. After 

completing her studies in 1932 she became assistant 
to the chemist A. Smits at the General and Inorganic 
Chemistry Laboratory of the University of Amster-
dam. She is mainly known for her work in X-ray 
crystallography.

53. Smits, A., MacGillavry, C.H., Proceedings of the 
Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschap-

pen, 1929, 32, 610.
54. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1925, 774.
55. “…ces résultats étaient peut-être de grande impor-

tance parce que si vraiment le plomb s’active et émet 
des particules α, il estvraisemblable qu’il y a une 
transmutation de plomb en mercure”.

56. Dănuţ Şerban -  Drumurile mele toate ..., Ştefania 
Mărăcineanu,  Memoriae Ingenii, Revista Muzeului 
Naţional Tehnic Prof. ing. Dimitrie Leonida, octom-
brie 2013, page 6.

57. Voi lupta, dragă Doamnă, şi pentru mine şi pentru 
dreptate şi pentru onoarea ţării şi a femeilor.

58. Ş. Mărăcineanu, C.R., 1930, 190, 373.
59. “Ne serait-ce pas là le resultat d’une transmutation 

poussée au delà du plomb dans la serie periodique 
des éléments? et la radioactivité ne serait-elle pas une 
propriété générale de la matiére?”

60. “je ne peux pas comprendre comment M. M. Fabry 
et Dureuil n’en ont pas trouvé [trace d’or, d’helium ou 
de mercure]”.

61. He was a French physicist and chemist. He was 
appointed Associate Professor of Physical Sciences in 
1908. He then became Professor at the Faculty of Sci-
ences at Dijon, where he spent all of his career. He 
was also a member of the Academy of Sciences, Arts 
and Letters of Dijon. Wounded in World War I, he 
was decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1929.

62. A. Boutaric, Bulletin de l’asociation des Diplomes de 
Microbiologie de la Faculté de Pharmacie de Nancy, 
1941, 19/23, 5.

63. A. Boutaric, Mlle. Madeleine Roy, C.R., 1930, 190, 
483.

64. Mme Mary Wallace Shillito was the widow of a 
wealthy Mauritian businessman, Assan Farid Dina 
(1871-1928). Both were allegedlly occultists and 
alchemists. She died at the age of 62 of a heart attack 
brought on by an accident, and is buried in Geneva.

65. A. Smits, Mlle. MacGillavry, C.R., 1930, 190, 635.
66. H. Deslandres, C.R., 1930, 190, 637.
67. G. Reboul, C.R., 1929, 189, 1256; G. Reboul, C.R., 

1930, 190, 374.
68. Pokrovsky, Zeitschrift fuer Physik, 1930, 59, 127.
69. “il faut attendre que l’étude des faits ait été pousée 

plus loin”.
70. A. Lepape, M. Geslin, C.R., 1930, 190, 676.
71. Ş. Mărăcineanu, Bullettin de la Section Scientifique de 

l’Academie Roumaine, 1930, 13, 55.
72. A. Boutaric, Mlle. M. Roy, C.R., 1930, 190, 1410.
73. Catalan physicist, whose name is often written as 

Josep Baltà i Elies.
74. J. Baltá Elías, Anales de Física y Química, 1941, 180.
75. C.R. Lawrence, JPL, for the Planck Collaboration, 



95Science is Not a Totally Transparent Structure: Ştefania Mărăcineanu and the Presumed Discovery of  Artificial Radioactivity

Astrophysics Subcommittee, NASA HQ (18 March 
2015) “Planck 2015 Results” (See page 29 of pdf ).

76. Faculty of Science of the University of Bucharest.
77. Professor Ing. Dănuţ Şerban’s website: http://www.

stefania-maracineanu.ro/; last access 06/12/2016.
78. Middle school for girls.
79. S. Mărăcineanu, Radioactivitatea şi constituţia 

materiei. (Efectul razelor solare in fenomenele radioac-
tive), Editura Casei coalelor, Bucuresti, 1929, pp. 37.

80. S. Mărăcineanu, Radioactivitatea, Tipografia C. Laza-
rescu, Bucuresti, 1936, pp. 218.

81. I. Joliot-Curie,“Gespraech mit Irene Curie. Die 
Tochter derr Radiumentdeckerin in Wien” “Conver-
sation with Irene Curie. The daughter of radium’s dis-
coverer at Vienna”, Neues Wiener Journal, 5 giugno 
1934, pag 6.

82. “Romanian engineer and physicist, and also known 
for some of his achievements in mechanical engi-
neering and electrochemistry. He created a con-
troversial contrivance that goes by the name of the 
Karpen Pile: a battery capable of self-perpetuating 
recharge which provided power for over 60 years. 
A fraud according to scientists; an example of per-
petual motion according to some newspapers”. San-
dru, Ovidiu.  “Karpen’s Pile: A Battery That Pro-
duces Energy Continuously Since 1950 Exists in 
Romanian Museum”. Retrieved  20 July  2012. http://
www.greenoptimistic.com/karpen-pile/; last access 
06/12/2016.

83. “Artificial radioactivity, a discovery of Romanian [sci-
entists] in this area”. Professor Ing. Dănuţ Şerban’s 
website: http://www.stefania-maracineanu.ro/; last 
access 06/12/2016.

84. I do not dispute the award of the Nobel Prize to 
Mme. Joliot-Curie for the advancements that she 
made to this discovery, such as investigative meth-
ods, highlighting the phenomenon that I consider to 
have discovered. But I ask you to recognize the role I 
played in this discovery. I was the first to announce 
this phenomenon in 1924 when it seemed utter fool-
ishness. Mme. Joliot-Curie used the same method 
that I used at the beginning of her research. ... The 
only difference is that she placed a metal sheet over 
polonium, while I deposited a polonium solution on 
the metal foil.

 Pierre Curie’s widow [in this second stage of the let-
ter, the Romanian researcher refers to Marie Curie 
in 1923] did not allow me to give this explanation 
in my thesis and assured me that if I listened to her, 
the work would be continued and that when my PhD 
was finished, an article in my name would appear. In 
that case, I held back. […] Immediately after obtain-

ing the PhD, I published my results on my own at 
the Romanian Academy”. English translation from 
http://www.mnt-leonida.ro/09Noutati/090043Nouta
ti2013.10.17/StMaracineanu2013AR.pdf; last access 
06/12/2016.

85. “... This laboratory is my life, from which I could 
never be separated.” English translation from http://
w w w. m nt - l e o n i d a . r o / 0 9 No u t at i / 0 9 0 0 4 3 No u t a
ti2013.10.17/StMaracineanu2013AR.pdf; last access 
06/12/2016.

86. It was persecution and personal opposition that has 
followed me step by step, since I broke off with the 
Institut du Radium ... English translation from from: 
http://www.mnt-leonida.ro/09Noutati/090043Nouta
ti2013.10.17/StMaracineanu2013AR.pdf; last access 
06/12/2016.

87. France was the only ally and guarantor of Romanian 
borders. Her collapse under German tanks in May 
1940 threw the Romanian government into complete 
panic. King Carol decided to make a last-minute pro-
posal to Hitler to curry favor with the Axis, but a few 
days afterward, Russia commanded Romania to cede 
the province of Bessarabia, while the Axis didn’t bat 
an eyelash. During July and August 1940, the Hun-
garians and Bulgarians prepared (with German sup-
port) to further amputate Romania (the Kingdom of 
Transylvania and Southern Dobruja). The day after 
signing the Diktat of Vienna (August 30, 1940) King 
Carol named General Antonescu governor, and abdi-
cated in favor of his son, Michael (b. 1921) who ten 
years earlier had been deposed with a coup d’état.

88. Information supplied by Gheorghe Bezviconi (1910-
1966) in his book “Necropoli Capitale”, published 
posthumously by the Institute of History “Nicolae 
Iorga,” 1972.

89. D.G. Karraker, A. Ghiorso, and D.H. Templeton, 
Phys. Rev., 1951, 83, July, 390.

90. Woolum, S. Dorothy, D.S. Burnett, L.S. August, 
Nuclear Instruments & Methods, 1976, 138(4), 655.

91. J.J. Howland, D.H. Templeton, I. Perlman, Physical 
Review, 1947, 71, 552; D. H. Templeton, J.J. Howland, 
I. Perlman, Physical Review, 1947, 72, 766.

92. E. Amaldi, O. D’Agostino, E. Fermi, B. Pontecorvo, 
F. Rasetti, E. Segrè, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 
1935, 149A, 522; O.  D’Agostino, E. Fermi, B. Ponte-
corvo, F. Rasetti, E. Segrè, Ricerca Scientifica, 1934, 1, 
380.

93. W.Y. Chang, Phys. Rev., 1946, 70 November 1, 632.
94. J. Clay, K.H.J. Jonker, Physica (The Hague), 1938, 5, 

171.
95. CCA, Doc. Reference MTNR 5/12; letter from 

Ştefania Mărăcineanu to Lise Meitner, 12/03/1936.



96 Marco Fontani, Mary Virginia Orna, Mariagrazia Costa and Sabine Vater

96. Word written between the lines.
97. Grammatically, it should be “vos”.
98. In the original letter, the “y” is written “i”.
99. It should be: “maçonnique”.
100. Words added between the lines.
101. In the original letter, the “y” is written “i”.
102. Madam,
 In February I presented my work - on artificial 

radioactivity - to the attention of German Science. 
You are an authority in this field and your opinion 
on it will be highly esteemed. I hope that the work 
has already been presented to you by those people 
who may be concerned. Madam, I do not ask for a 
favor, but only justice and I warmly do appeal to 
your spirit of “equity” and your love for science. I do 
not ask for the laurels of Madame Joliot-Curie; but 
I only ask that the part I played at the beginning of 
this discovery is recognized as well as my pioneer-
ing work on artificial rain. I have seen that in France 
they are beginning to talk about this subject without 
mentioning my experiments in that area. Madame, 
you have known me as Mme. Curie’s pupil, I do not 
know how she would have looked at this question; In 
any case, I beg you very much not to speak of me to 
Mme. J. Curie. Do not write to her that I have also 
addressed you [by this letter]. She hates me and she 
belongs to a very powerful Judeo-Masonic organi-
zation. | She is a Communist |. I speak of it knowl-
edgeably, believe me, because I have had occasion to 
feel her power. Only in Germany can I be vindicated. 
Please accept, Madam, the expression of my most 
distinguished greetings,

 Dr. Stéphanie Mărăcineanu 
103. E. Tina Crossfield, “Irène Joliot-Curie: following in 

her Mother’s Footsteps”, in “A Devotion to their Sci-
ence: Pioneer Women in Radioactivity” by Marelene 
F. Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham 
Editors, 1997, Chemical Heritage Foundation Phila-
delphia & McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal 
pp. 97-124.

104. E. Amaldi, “La radioactivité artificielle a 50 ans, 
1934-1984”, Éditions du Physique, 1984, pp. 164.

105. J.C. Gomes, “Georges Urbain (1872-1938), chimie e 
philosophie”, Doctoral dissertation, 2003, Université 
de Paris X, Nanterre, 235-242.

106. M. Charpentier-Morize, “Perrin, Savant et homme 
politique”, 1997, Ed. Belin, 217-226; B. Bensaude-
Vincent, Langevin (1872-1946)  science et vigilance, 
Paris, Ed. Belin, 1987, 271.

107. J.C. Gomes, Ibid., 40-44.
108. A colleague, Fortunée Schecroun (1896-1978), 

known as Nine Choucroun, officially became the 
compagne of Jean Perrin after the death of Heniette 
Perrin (1869-1938); Eliane Montel (1898-1992) had 
a lengthy relationship with Paul Langevin after he 
left his first lover, Marie Curie, and their bed-sit that 
they had rented in rue de Banquier, not far from the 
Sorbonne. Finally, Georges Urbain (1872-1938), left a 
widower in 1936, married his “personal nurse,” Jac-
queline Nancy Ullern (1910-78), nearly forty years 
his junior.

109. G. Urbain, Scientia (Milan), 1934, 56, 71; G. Urbain, 
Bulletin de la Société Chimique de France: Memoires, 
1937, 4, 1612.

110. Between 1938 and 1940, about a half-dozen obituar-
ies were published to remember him. Also, two biog-
raphies came out on the occasion of the centenary of 
his birth (1972). In one of them, there is an outline 
of his homéomérie theory.

111. J. Perrin, Annales de Physique, 1919, 11,  5.
112. M. Fontani , M. Costa, M.V. Orna, “The Lost Ele-

ments: the Periodic Table’s Shadow Side”, Oxford 
University Press, 2015, p. 331-334.

113. D. Pestre, Physique et physiciens en France 1918-1949, 
Edition des Archives Contemporaines, 1984; M.J. 
Nye, From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chem-
istry 1800-1950, University of California Press, 1993.

114. R. Trivers, Annals of the New York Academy of Sci-
ence, 2000, 907, 114.

115. M. Charpentier-Morize, “Perrin, Savant et homme 
politique”, 1997, Ed. Belin, 107-109.

116. R. Hoffmann, in M. Fontani, M. Costa, M.V. Orna, 
“The Lost Elements: the Periodic Table’s Shadow 
Side”, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. xvi.


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	Acknowledgments