Berta Karlik (24 January 1904 – 4 February 1990) was an Austrian

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. She worked for the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

, eventually becoming the first female professor at the institution. While working with Ernst Foyn she published a paper on the radioactivity of seawater. She discovered that the

chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...

astatine Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. All of astatine's isotopes are short-li ...

is a product of the natural decay processes. The element was first synthesized in 1940 by Dale R. Corson, K. R. MacKenzie, and

Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè (1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobe ...

, after several scientists in vain searched for it in radioactive minerals.

Biography

Early life and education

Berta Karlik was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

to an upper-class family and was home-taught for her elementary education. While being taught at home she learned to play the piano as well as speak and write French, Dutch and English. From 1919 to 1923, she attended the Reform-Realgymnasium and upon graduating in 1923 she was accepted as a regular student to the Philosophical Faculty at the

until 1928 when she received her Ph.D.Tsoneva-Mathewson, S., M. F. Rayner-Canham, G. F. Rayner-Canham, A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, (Eds. Rayner-Canham), McGill-Queen.s University Press (1997) While enrolled as a student at the university Karlik became an essential member of Hans Pettersson's research group at the Radium Institute with her specialty being the scintillation counter. Karlik also attended a fellowship from the International Federation of University Women which required her to travel while working for the Radium Institute. After receiving her degree in physics, Karlik accepted a teaching position at the Realgymnasium in Vienna, where she was a former pupil.

Entering the Field

In 1930 Karlik found a job at a laboratory run by

William Henry Bragg Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquelyThis is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nob ...

in London. Here she worked on crystallography and used X-rays to study the structure of crystals. Karlik's knowledge of radiophysics attracted the attention of noted crystallographers Ellie Knaggs and Helen Gilchrist. The same year that she formed a group with these two women is the same year she first visits

Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...

's lab in Paris which signaled the start of her long correspondence with various other female physicists. While Karlik occasionally sent letters to Marie Curie she kept regular correspondence with other notable physicists such as

Ellen Gleditsch Ellen Gleditsch (29 December 1879 – 5 June 1968) was a Norwegian radiochemist and Norway's second female professor. Starting her career as an assistant to Marie Curie, she became a pioneer in radiochemistry, establishing the half-life of radiu ...

and Eva Resmtedt, two of the Curie researchers, as well as Lise Meitner, with whom Karlik was quite close during her life. Throughout her life she would meet with Meitner who worked with the team responsible for discovering nuclear fission.

Research

After studying in Paris and London she started working at the Institut für Radiumforschung (Institute for Radium Research) in Vienna in 1931. From 1937 she was allowed to give lectures, and slowly advanced in the hierarchy of the institute. Simultaneously Karlik joined a group on seawater research headed by the Swedish physicist Hans Pettersson. Mixing knowledge of oceanography and radioactivity, Karlik helped to bring up concerns about the biological issue of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

contamination of seawater. During the Second World War she made her most important discovery, that the element with the atomic number 85, Astatine, was a product of natural decay. Astatine's main use is in radiotherapy to kill cancer cells. Due to this discovery Karlik was awarded the Haitinger Prize for Chemistry from the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1947. She became provisional director of the institute in 1945 and official director in 1947 upon discovering the existence of astatine. Berta Karlik was the first woman to be full professor ("ordentliche Professur") at the

in 1956. She retired in 1973, but worked at the institute until her death in 1990.

Publications

* "An Alpha-Radiation Ascribed to Element 85," S.B.Akad. Wiss. Wien, 152:Abt. IIa (Nos. 6–10) 103-110(1943), with T. Bernert. * "Element 85 in the Natural Disintegration Series," Z. Phys., 123: (Nos. 1–2) 51-72 (1944), with T. Bernert. * "Uranium Content of Seawater," Akad. Wiss. Wien, Ber, 144:2a (Nos.5-6) 217-225 (1935), with F. Hernegger.

Notes

References

* * * Tsoneva-Mathewson, S., M. F. Rayner-Canham, G. F. Rayner-Canham, A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, (Eds. Rayner-Canham), McGill-Queen.s University Press (1997) * *

Sources

* Archive, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Archivbehelf: Institut fur Radiumforschung, XIII. Berta Karlik, Karton 43, Fiche 629 {{DEFAULTSORT:Karlik, Berta 20th-century Austrian physicists 1904 births 1990 deaths Austrian women physicists University of Vienna alumni 20th-century women scientists