Why is radium so important?
Any list that rated the atomic elements in the order of their importance would place radium near the top. Actually there are two very different reasons for its outstanding importance. One is the unique role it played in the history of science. The other is its dramatic usefulness to mankind. The earth’s most plentiful element is oxygen. It is vital to plants and animals and the world of living things could not survive without it. Certainly in terms of usefulness oxygen would rate as the most important of the earth’s 92 chemical elements. It makes up almost half of the earth’s crust. The element radium makes up less than one billionth part of the earth’s crust. Small traces of its atoms are concealed in mixtures with other minerals and radium is hard, very hard to come by. The earth also has scanty supplies of many other rare elements. Most of us hardly ever hear of them and few of us know their names. But all of us have heard about radium and know that it is important. Its sudden rise
