Elizabeth Rona

Elizabeth Rona was a great scientist.

She was born in a land called Hungary. Her father was a doctor. He liked science, too.

Elizabeth loved to learn. She studied how tiny pieces of matter move. She found a new element. This was a very big deal.

She was an expert at making special samples.

These samples helped other scientists. She even helped with a big project in America.

Later, she taught students at a school. She also studied the bottom of the sea. She looked at the sand and the water.

Elizabeth worked hard her whole life. She was a very important leader in science.

Elizabeth Rona was a famous nuclear chemist.

She was born in Hungary in 1890. Her father was a doctor. He helped bring x-ray machines to her city. Elizabeth loved science. She earned her PhD in 1912.

She studied how tiny parts of matter move. She worked with George de Hevesy.

Rona proved a new element existed. It was called Uranium-Y. We now call it thorium-231. She also named "tracers." These are tiny markers used to track changes in science.

Later, Rona became an expert on polonium.

She made a better way to prepare it. This helped many other scientists. She even shared her methods with the Manhattan Project. This was a secret project in the United States.

She also studied the ocean. Rona looked at the sea floor. She measured elements in the water and sand. She used radiometric dating to learn about the past. This is a way to find the age of rocks. Rona was a great leader in science.

Elizabeth Rona was a famous nuclear chemist who studied tiny, energetic parts of matter.

She was born in Budapest, Hungary, on March 20, 1890. Her father was a doctor who helped bring x-ray machines to their city. Even though her father thought science might be too hard for women, he encouraged her. Elizabeth worked very hard and earned her PhD in 1912. She spent her life discovering how different elements behave. Her work helped scientists understand the building blocks of our world.

One of her most important jobs was studying how things move through liquids.

While working with George de Hevesy, she studied a substance called Uranium-Y. We now know this substance is actually thorium-231. Rona was able to separate it from other things that got in the way. This proved the element was real and showed how it released energy. During this time, she created the terms "isotope labels" and "tracers." These are tiny markers that scientists use to track how things change.

Rona also became a world leader in working with polonium. She traveled to Paris to study with the famous scientist Irène Joliot-Curie. There, Rona developed a better way to prepare samples of polonium. This was a big deal because it allowed other researchers to do more work. She even brought a small disc of polonium back to her own lab in Vienna. This helped her create many more samples for other scientists to use.

Her life was full of many changes and travels.

In 1933, she won the Haitinger Prize from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Because of hard times in Europe, she moved to the United States in 1941. She received a Carnegie Fellowship to study seawater and sand from the ocean floor. During a secret project called the Manhattan Project, she shared her polonium methods. Her ideas helped build plants in the New Mexico desert to process elements.

Later in her career, Rona moved to the University of Miami to study the ocean. She used a method called radiometric dating to look at the seabed. This is a way to find the age of rocks by looking at how elements decay. She also studied how much radium was in different parts of the sea. Elizabeth Rona lived a long, important life until 1981. In 2015, she was added to the Tennessee Women's Hall of Fame to honor her great work.

Elizabeth Rona was a pioneering nuclear chemist who specialized in radioactive isotopes.

An isotope is a version of a chemical element that has a different number of neutrons. Rona became a global authority on isotope separation and the preparation of polonium. Her work helped scientists understand how elements decay and how to use them as tools. This expertise allowed her to make major contributions to both basic chemistry and large-scale industrial projects. Throughout her career, she moved across Europe and eventually to the United States to continue her research.

During her postdoctoral studies between 1914 and 1918, Rona worked with George de Hevesy.

At this time, very few atomic elements had been identified by scientists. Rona was tasked with verifying a substance then called "Uranium-Y." She successfully separated this substance from other interfering elements. This proved that Uranium-Y was actually thorium-231, a beta emitter with a half-life of 25 hours. During this process, she coined the terms "isotope labels" and "tracers." These terms describe using specific isotopes to track chemical processes. Her discovery that the velocity of diffusion depends on the mass of the nuclides laid the groundwork for future mass spectrographic studies.

Rona's expertise in polonium preparation became a central part of her career. Polonium is a highly radioactive element that emits alpha particles. To improve her skills, she traveled to Paris to study with Irène Joliot-Curie at the Curie Institute. There, Rona developed an enhanced method for preparing polonium sources. This method allowed for the production of alpha-emissions more effectively. When she returned to the Institute for Radium Research in Vienna, she brought a small disc of polonium with her. This disc enabled her to create lab specimens that fueled much of the institute's subsequent research.

In the late 1920s, Rona expanded her research into the earth and sea. She began analyzing sea bottom sediment to determine its radium content. For twelve years, she conducted summer research at the Bornö Marine Research Station in Sweden.

Working with Berta Karlik, she studied the half-lives of uranium, thorium, and actinium. These studies helped identify the principles of radiometric dating. Radiometric dating is a method used to determine the age of rocks and materials by measuring the decay of radioactive isotopes. Her findings regarding elemental alpha particle ranges were highly significant to the field of geochemistry.

Political instability in Europe forced Rona to move frequently. In 1938, she and colleague Marietta Blau left the Radium Institute due to antisemitic persecution. Rona eventually immigrated to the United States in 1941. She was granted a Carnegie Fellowship to work at the Geophysical Laboratory. During this time, she studied the chemistry of seawater and river water. Her 1942 study showed that the ratio of radium to uranium is lower in seawater than in river water. This research provided important data on how elements move through the Earth's water systems.

Rona's technical knowledge was later utilized by the Manhattan Project. This was a secret research project to develop the first atomic weapons. The project required polonium and beryllium to create a reaction that would release neutrons. This reaction is necessary to ignite the fission required for an atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project used Rona's specific methods for polonium extraction. Based on her technical specifications, plants were built in the New Mexico desert at Los Alamos National Laboratory to process these elements. Although her methods were vital, the project was conducted under strict secrecy.

In her later years, Rona focused on teaching and marine science. She served as a nuclear chemistry professor at the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies for 15 years. She later transferred to the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Miami. There, she continued her investigations into the geochronology of seabed elements. Rona was a person who understood the risks of her profession. Early in her career, she faced exposure to radium and purchased her own protective gas masks. In 1978, she wrote about the physical damage radiation caused to the hands and lungs of scientists. Elizabeth Rona died in 1981 and was posthumously inducted into the Tennessee Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.