Technikatörténeti szemle 22. (1996)
Papers from the Second International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Eger, Hungary, 16–19 August, 1995) - Palló, Gábor: Early Research on Radioactivity in Hungary
The first Hungarian scientific contributions to the field of radioactivity bear the same characteristics as the first reaction. It also came soon, in 1898 already, and not from physics, but from chemistry. The first papers also contained a seed of skepticism. Béla Lengyel of the Budapest University was the first who published on the subject. He was a precise, systematic researcher of inorganic chemistry and chemical analysis, a specialist of alkaline earth metals. He used his skill for establishing if calcium radiates or not. In 1898 he published a paper, the first one in the field in Hungary, which answered the question in the negative. He found out though that the photographic plate tends to get black in the presence of calcium compounds. This was caused, according to Lengyel, not by radiation but by some reductive gases, like hydrogen or carbon monoxide, which step into chemical reaction with the photographic plate. This way, the paper called in question the reliability of a fundamental indication of radiation, and this aspect was fruitful, when scientists thought to find new radiating materials every day. 3 Lengyel's first paper denied the radiation of some metals but not that of uranium and thorium. His skepticism paid in his first paper, but deprived him of a significant discovery in a further work published in 1900. In this, he wanted to prove that radium is not an element just a modification of barium. The arguments were based on the chemical similarity of radium and barium. He judged the differences in their spectra too slight, and he thought the measurements of the atomic weights to be unreliable. Lengyel explained the radioactivity of the matters, called radium and actinium by the popular concept of induced activity. He took the next logical step also. If radium is not an independent element, then it could be produced from an other material. Therefore, he melted uranyl-nitrate with barium nitrate, then solved the material in hydrochloric acid and finally with sulfuric acid, he precipitated the barium sulfate from the solution. According to his experience, the photographic plate became black on the influence of this precipitate. In his opinion, this proved that barium causes the effect that was ascribed to radium. He got some agreeing but mostly disagreeing reaction from Hungary and from other countries. Some years later, however, he recognized that he was entirely wrong. 4 This story might show that skepticism in modern, competitive fields does not necessarily pay well. In 1899, about the same time as Lengyel, Debierne and Giesel discovered actinium in a similar material that Lengyel investigated. This time skepticism made Lengyel blind and prevented him from achieving a significant result.
