Jean Frederic Joliot

Jean Frederic Joliot was born on 9 March 1900 in Paris, France. He graduated from the Escole de Physique et Chimie in Paris. In 1925, Joliot worked as an assistant to Marie Curie at the Radium Institute of Paris. Joliot met Marie Curie's daughter, Irene, while working at the institute and married her in 1926. Joliot received his Doctor of Science degree in 1930 for his research in electrochemistry and radioactive elements. Joliot and his wife collaborated in the study of atomic nucleus projection and in other fields of nuclear physics.

The Joliot-Curie team made a monumental discovery in 1934 when they produced the first artificial radioactive elements. Using alpha

particles they bombarded boron, magnesium, and aluminum and created artificial elements. This discovery earned the Joliot-Curie team the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their synthesis of new radioactive elements." The Joliot-Curie contributions were extremely important to the advancement of nuclear physics and contributed to the development of the first atomic bomb.

Joliot went on to research atomic pile construction using uranium and heavy water, for which he earned five patents between 1939 and 1940. His involvement in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II led Joliot to become President of the National Front and to establish the French Communist party. Frederic Joliot was appointed the first High Commissioner for Atomic Energy in 1946. In 1948, he directed the construction of France's first atomic pile with the help of his wife.

The changing political climate in France and Joliot's ties to the Communist party resulted in his removal from the Atomic Energy Commission in 1950. After his wife's death in 1956, Joliot was elected to the Chair of Nuclear Physics at the University of Paris. Frederic Joliot-Curie died in 1958 in Paris.