Marguerite Perey: The Chemist Who Captured the World's Rarest Element

On October nineteenth, nineteen hundred and nine, Marguerite Perey was born in Villemomble, France. She was a chemist and physicist, and her academic field was radiochemistry and atomic physics.

Perey began her career as a laboratory assistant to the legendary chemist Marie Curie. While working on purifying samples of the element actinium, she noticed a mysterious and unknown form of radiation. With incredible precision and perseverance, she managed to isolate the source of this radiation in nineteen thirty-nine. She had discovered a completely new element with atomic number 87, which she named francium – after her homeland, France. This was the last naturally occurring element to be discovered, and it is extremely rare and radioactive. The discovery was a scientific sensation and a monumental breakthrough for the periodic table. In nineteen sixty-two, she became the first female professor at the French Academy of Sciences, the Académie des Sciences. Perey's work stands as a testament to the fact that groundbreaking research does not always begin in professorial chairs, but often in the laboratories of dedicated and sharp-witted researchers.