#radium — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-02-13 · 12:34 UTC

Blame Marie Curie For the Loss of the Chiming Watch

Once upon a time, the most-common complicated watches would ring out the time on demand. Why are they so rare today? It’s not because they were too complex to build and maintain or too difficult to build; many companies were working on these issues even in the 1890s. And the chiming pocket watch met a special market need, allowing the owner to tell the time in the dark. But the popularity of luminous dials, painted with Marie Curie’s radium salts, allowed everyone to tell the time in the dark. Competition pushed the chiming watch into obscurity, where it remains today.

Buyers of fine watches had a multitude of choices as the 20th century arrived, with fantastic upscale makers from Breguet to Paul Buhré to Patek Philippe to Audemars Piguet and many more. Then as now, high-end watchmakers sought to differentiate their offerings with complications like calendars, chronographs, and especially chimes. Though these additional functions had been developing for a century or more, the one that caught the attention of the rising moneyed gentleman was the so-called repeating watch, which rang out the time on command.

At the same time, industrialized production and the automated cutting machines made it possible for firms across Switzerland, Germany, and France to produce reliable, accurate, and affordable watches. This lead to broad availability of chiming watches from mainstream brands like Le Phare, Invicta, Vulcain, and Angélus. But just as chiming movements were becoming more common and affordable, the entire genre collapsed. This is the story of the fall of a complication and the rise of radium.

The Four Complications

Anything added to a basic watch movement is called a complication, and these fall into a few general categories:

Automatic winding is the most common today. Some would not even consider this to be a complication, but it was certainly included on the list in historic times and took over a century to perfect.
Calendar functions, and particularly a date window, are also familiar enough to be taken for granted. This category includes related complications like 24 hour hands, GMT, second timezone, and world time indicators, and astronomical displays.
The chronograph and stopwatch are perhaps the most recognizable complications today, and still command a premium price. These too took a century to perfect.
Few modern watch buyers are even familiar with the chiming watch, but sonnerie, répétition, and réveil were the defining achievement of generations of watchmakers before the modern era. Today only the alarm watch is produced in any volume, and even this is a rarity.

Turn of the century buyers could purchase a reliable repeating watch from many Swiss firms. The watch in this 1909 advertisement likely used a Lemania movement.

This situation was entirely reversed at the turn of the 20th century. Chiming watches, and repeaters in particular, were the most common and popular complication. Various calendar functions were well-known, but customers saw little need for them. The chronograph was still in its infancy, though it had found customers in military and sporting circles. And automatic winding would still take a few decades to appear.

The most popular form of chiming watch was the repeater, which rings the time on demand. Most used a pushbutton that both powered and triggered the chime, which rang the hours, quarters, and five or even one minute count. Many people use the term “minute repeater” generically to refer to all such watches, but it refers only to watches that specifically chime to the minute. Five-minute or simply quarter repetition was far more common a century ago.

There are two other categories of chiming watches:

A sonnerie chimes the hour or the quarters autonomously (“en passant”), as is common in a grandfather or church clock. A grande sonnerie chimes the quarters, while a petite sonnerie chimes only the hour.
A réveil operates like an alarm clock, ringing at a pre-set time in the future. These have been produced for centuries but were never in great demand until the 1950s and rapidly fell out of favor.

Anxiety About Time

Rue de la Promenade was considered the finest address in La Chaux-de-Fonds, but dozens of members of the Brandt family (founders of Omega) lived and worked together in a single house at the end, despite being members of the Bourgeoisie

We live in a culture obsessed with time, but this was not the case before the 20th century. Most people lived communally and rose, ate, worked, and played along with those around them rather than on the whims of a clock. Extended families lived together, and beds were shared with family members and even strangers. There was very little need to set an alarm to wake at a certain time when the whole house arose together. Since the week was tightly associated with the schedules of the church, no one needed to know the date. Very few activities needed precise time measurement.

All this changed as industrialization allowed more people access to the comforts of life that had previously been reserved for the ownership class. The expanding middle class began moving to larger houses with more bedrooms and experiencing a new feeling: Privacy. Unused to sleeping alone they likely woke in the middle of the night, wondering how much longer they could stay in bed.

At the same time, workers and managers alike began commuting to workshops and factories, even taking trains to other towns and villages. By the turn of the 20th century, anxiety had a risen about waking and schedules, even among the working class. Many of these were served by bells, increasingly attached to factories rather than churches, that alerted them when to arrive at work.

The Repeating Chime Craze

Repeating watches solve a problem: Rather than feeling for the position of the hands or waiting for a chime en passant, a repeater could “speak” the time even in pitch dark. In the 1890s, once industrialization and invention made them more practical, demand for repeating watches exploded.

Many familiar brands, including Invicta, Vulcain, Martel, and Lemania, began with chiming watches

A few watchmakers deserve special credit for the repeating watch craze. These were centered in the Swiss Jura and the Vallée de Joux.

Le Locle, Ponts-de-Martel, and La Chaux-de-Fonds brought us Le Phare, Martel, Angélus, and Invicta:

Charles Barbezat-Baillot (1846-1938) went from apprentice to partner of Henri Guye (1838-1877) of Le Locle in the 1870s, taking over the company after his early death. His Barbezat-Baillot watch factory was formed in 1888 to capitalize on a patented repeating watch design, sold as Le Phare (“the lighthouse”) by 1896. This would become the leading producer of repeating watches in the era until it was taken over by Jämes Favre of Zenith in 1914.
Georges Pellaton-Steudler (1865-1950) invented the Le Phare movement. He formed his own company in Le Locle in 1910 before moving to Ponts-de-Martel to establish the Martel Watch Company there. Georges was the son of Albert Pellaton-Favre (1832-1914), inventor of the practical tourbillon, and brother of Jämes-César Pellaton (1873-1954), who continued his father’s work at the Le Locle watchmaking school. The Martel factory became a leading producer of chronographs after the repeating watch bust, eventually creating the El Primero for Zenith!
Edmond Mathey-Tissot (1858-1929) was already producing complicated watches in Ponts-de-Martel with Albert Guye (1867-1952) when Georges Pellaton-Steudler arrived. The three watchmakers worked closely together, promoting the repeater as well as the chronograph.
Henri Barbezat-Bôle was a specialist in the finest watches and complications. Working in Le Locle, he was likely related to Charles Barbezat-Baillot. His firm was founded a bit earlier and continued longer, merging with Paul Buhré in 1928. Barbezat-Bôle had a patented minute repeater with four hammers.
Stolz Frères of Le Locle rapidly expanded their factory, producing the Angélus repeating pocket watch there. Like Excelsior Park and Martel, Angélus was able to pivot from the repeater to the chronograph and became a successful producer of clocks in the 20th century.
The Invicta brand was originally specific to a repeating watch manufactured by Fils de R. Picard of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It was manufactured alongside the company’s Military Watch using standardized and mass-produced components. The factory took the Invicta name in 1908 and this remains one of the most famous brands in watchmaking.

The Vallée de Joux was long a center for complicated watchmaking and some of these firms produced larger quantities of repeating watches:

Henri Magnenat-Lecoultre formed a specialized company in Le Sentier to manufacture minute repeaters of his own design in 1887. He sold the company to Jeanneret-Brehm, maker of Excelsior Park chronographs, in 1910. They closed the Le Sentier factory in 1917 after the repeater bubble burst.
John-W. Meylan (1877-1938) was born into watchmaking in the Vallée de Joux, patenting a pusher mechanism to wind and trigger the chime. He partnered with Charles Aubert and supplied many high-end watch brands with repeating movements, including Audemars Piguet.
Alfred Lugrin (1858-1920) produced complicated watches in l’Orient in the Vallée de Joux, including chronographs and repeaters. He sold these using the Lemania brand exclusively until the repeater watch lost favor. His factory joined SSIH, the holding company for Omega and Tissot, in 1932 and is today known as Manufacture Breguet.

There are many others who could be included on this list, but it should be clear that the repeating watch was a major industry trend from the 1890s through the beginning of World War I. But it should also be noted that most of these watchmakers went out of business or switched to chronographs around this time.

Though forgotten today, the reason for the collapse of the repeating watch market was well known at the time: Luminous radium dials allowed one to tell the time at night without a complex chiming mechanism.

H. Barbezat-Bôle of Le Locle produced some of the finest complicated watches of the era
Revue Internationale de l’Horlogerie, December 1903

Radium: The Miraculous New Material

Marie Curie and her husband Pierre were inspired by the work of Röntgen and Becquerel to search for new elements in their Paris laboratory in the late 1890s. She focused on pitchblende and chalcolite ores, noting that they were “much more active than uranium.” In 1898 the Curies published papers announcing the existence of polonium and radium, coining the word “radioactivity” but not understanding the dangers.

The Curies’ discovery caused a worldwide sensation, with speculation about the application for “the luminous glow and spontaneous heat” of radium salts. The watch industry buzzed about the new element, with one article speculating about a “radium watch” that could be powered for life by a small lump of radium rather than a spring. More intriguing was the suggestion in Revue Horlogére and others that radium was a “philosopher’s stone” that could transmute corrundum into topaz or ruby. The potential to combine radium and phosphorous to produce lasting luminance was also noted, though this was one of many potential uses.

“Radium” was just a brand name for this 1903 Moutier watch

Perhaps the oddest result of the radium craze was the trend to name completely-unrelated things after the new material. A quick search of products using the name include a type of silk fabric, a movie theater, cigarette paper, and a brand of watches: The struggling Moutier Watch Company used the Radium brand name on watches as early as 1903, receiving a trademark on the word in October. This was five years before a luminous radium painted dial would be produced! It didn’t save the Société d’Horlogerie de Moutier, however; The company was bankrupt by the end of 1913.

Junghans, LIP, and Utinam

This June 1909 advertisement features the “Darling” alarm clock “avec cadran radium lumineux”

Radium was incredibly rare and expensive, requiring tons of ore to produce a single gram of radium salts. At first, access was limited to scientists and companies associated with the major French and German academies, and this is likely how the Junghans brothers of Schramberg in the German Kingdom of Württemberg became the first to produce a dial with luminous radium paint. On June 27, 1907 Arthur Junghans applied for a patent that covered the use of “improved luminous substance for indicators containing radium … of a clock, speed-gauge, or the like.”

The Junghans patent was granted in Germany, France, and America, and the German factory began producing an alarm clock with a radium painted dial in 1908. The “Darling” alarm clock included the company’s patented alarm movement and had luminous radium painted numerals and hands, allowing it to be seen in the dark. The early Darling clock did not use much of the precious radium salts, but it didn’t need to be very bright to be read at night.

Desiring to take advantage their “first mover” advantage, Junghans purchased advertisements in major newspapers in 1910 announcing that they would protect their patents vigorously, even requesting that any other radium-painted watch or clock be seized by the authorities. Needless to say, this did not go well with their competitors, especially LIP, which was already preparing to release a radium painted alarm clock of their own.

Junghans patented the use of luminous radium paint on watches and clocks in 1907, warning that competing products would be seized!
Revue Internationale de l’Horlogerie, November 1910

The validity of the Junghans patent was challenged with centuries of prior art for the use of luminous material in watchmaking and was quickly overturned. But LIP and others were quick to point out that there were patentable elements, from the formula and mixing, application technique, and the physical properties of the hands and dials. Indeed, the same people involved in the patent controversy quickly registered patents of their own, including Arthur Junghans.

LIP and Utinam released watches with luminous radium dials in November 1909

LIP was next to market, announcing in November 1909 that their latest watches show “time in the dark with Radium luminous dials and hands.” Swiss/French brand Utinam made a similar announcement later that same month, perhaps using LIP as a supplier. And Junghans continued refining their technology, releasing a pocket alarm watch with a radium dial that was ten times brighter.

The Radium Watch Craze

By 1914 nearly every watchmaking firm was offering luminous painted hands and numerals powered by radium. This same period saw an explosion of interest in alarm clocks, many of which included glowing dials as well. And the price of radium came down dramatically as demand grew and mixing techniques improved. Soon, even so-called economic watches would have glowing hands and dials.

This boom spelled the end of the repeating watch, however. Although the pushbutton chime was undoubtedly a joy, these complex watches were far more expensive than a simple alarm clock, even one with a radium dial. Demand crashed, with nearly every chiming watch specialist closing or changing hands between 1910 and 1920. The best were able to pivot to chronographs, compact watches for ladies, wristwatches, or other trends. But many, including specialists like John-W. Meylan and Henri Magnenat-Lecoultre, simply vanished into obscurity.

Eterna combined everything in 1914: A wristwatch with alarm, luminous radium dial, and optional automobile mount!

One of the most remarkable new luminous radium dial watches introduced in this period used a compact 13 ligne alarm movement from Schild Frères. Sold under the Eterna brand as a tiny pocket watch, it was also available with a novel wrist strap and matching attachment for use in an automobile. This was the first mass-produced alarm wristwatch, and would remain in production for three decades. Incredibly, production stopped just two years short of the introduction of the trend-setting Vulcain Cricket!

Customers weren’t ready to carry an alarm watch, however. They saw the utility in cheaper fixed alarm clocks, and these rose in popularity among factory workers and managers alike. And they loved the glowing radium numerals, especially once prices came down. A post-war boom and bust, followed by the Great Depression and World War II limited the market for complicated watches generally. It wasn’t until watchmakers tried to find novelty in the 1950s that calendars and automatic winding, and to a lesser extent chronographs and alarm watches, came back. But the repeater remained dormant for decades.

The Radium Girls

The radium craze had a darker side as well. Although it was well known at the time that there were powerful rays emanating from radium and other materials, the impact of radiation on the human body was not understood. Marie Curie would ultimately die of radiation exposure, as would dozens of so-called “radium girls” in America who pointed their brushes by touching them to their lips. The health effects of radium exposure was known but hidden from these workers, leading to lawsuits and a revolution in workplace safety regulations.

Radium-related illnesses were much less common in Europe. Junghans, LIP, and Swiss makers used glass pens and rods rather than camel hair brushes to apply the paint, and the technique and mixture was different. This resulted in far less exposure than the “lip, dip, paint” method taught to the American workers. And the Swiss workers in particular had social funds to provide medical care rather than being forced to sue the corporation.

Once the American radium dial companies adopted basic safety standards the health impact of radium was dramatically reduced. Although it is likely that some workers still succumbed to radium poisoning in America and Europe, the widespread illnesses suffered by the Radium Girls in the 1920s did not reoccur in the five decades of radium dial painting that followed.

I strongly recommend reading the 2018 book, “Radium Girls” by Kate Moore to learn more. Sadly, the 2020 film adaptation is poorly-written and full of anachronisms and non-sequiturs.

The Return of the Repeater

Gérald Genta’s 1978 grande complication combined a perpetual calendar and minute repeater in a platinum pocket watch set with diamonds and rubies
Europa Star 166, 1978

Although he is usually remembered for other innovations, it was Gérald Genta that brought the repeating watch back from its slumber in the 1970s: His 1978 gem-crusted grande complication pocket watch reminded the world what Swiss watchmakers were capable of producing. IWC and Audemars Piguet also brought the repeater back in exclusive pocket watches at the end of that bruising decade.

In the 1980s, Swiss watchmakers realized that complicated watches could be a path forward for the industry. Blancpain introduced an exclusive minute repeater at Basel in 1986 and paired it with a perpetual calendar the following year. IWC combined a minute repeater with a perpetual calendar and chronograph for the 1992 Il Destriero grande complication. Jaeger-LeCoultre even brought a minute repeater to the Reverso in 1994.

The Grail Watch Perspective: The Loss of a Charming Complication

Chiming watches are charming to the un-initiated. When I ring my Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox movement everyone stops to listen. And the AMVOX and Reverso are the only watches in my collection that my kids took an interest in. Given this kind of appeal, and the fact that modern manufacturing makes chiming watches practical once again, one would think they would be more common. But chimes have remained exclusive and limited.

This changed in 2022 when Christopher Ward introduced the GPHG-winning C1 Bel Canto. Priced under $4,000, the Bel Canto is the first repeater to come close to the widespread appeal of the turn of the century repeating watches from Invicta, Le Phare, and Vulcain. My friend owns one, and it’s just as charming as I imagined. Enough to tempt me to consider buying another watch!

#alarm #Angelus #BarbezatBôle #ChristopherWard #ComplicatedWatches #Eterna #ExcelsiorPark #GéraldGenta #Invicta #Junghans #LePhare #Lemania #LIP #MagnenatLecoultre #MarieCurie #Martel #MatheyTissot #Radium #Repeater #Utinam #Vulcain

#alarm #angelus #barbezatbole #christopherward #complicatedwatches #eterna

C. @[email protected] · 2025-12-29 · 05:26 UTC

Ooh! Ooh!

#AliExpress #radium #toxic #poison #RadiationSickness #radiation #MarieCurie #curie #LostInTranslation #Chinglish

#aliexpress #radium #toxic #poison #radiationsickness #radiation

HZDR @[email protected] · 2025-12-22 · 10:19 UTC

How healthy are Brazil nuts really: The popular seeds, known as “#selenium bombs”, contain also traces of metals like #barium and #radium. Researchers at #HZDR and #VKTA conducted a study on the amounts of these elements that could enter the body during digestion.

Read more:
▶️ www.hzdr.de/presse/brazil_nut

Image: B. Schröder/HZDR

#selenium #barium #radium #hzdr #vkta

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @[email protected] · 2025-11-07 · 13:14 UTC

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday! #OTD #WomenInStem #WomeninScience

#radium #polonium #radioactivity #nuclearfission #otd #womeninstem

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @[email protected] · 2025-11-07 · 13:14 UTC

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday! #OTD #WomenInStem #WomeninScience

#radium #polonium #radioactivity #nuclearfission #otd #womeninstem

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @[email protected] · 2025-11-07 · 13:14 UTC

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday! #OTD #WomenInStem #WomeninScience

#radium #polonium #radioactivity #nuclearfission #otd #womeninstem

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @[email protected] · 2025-11-07 · 13:14 UTC

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday! #OTD #WomenInStem #WomeninScience

#womeninscience #womeninstem #otd #nuclearfission #radioactivity #polonium

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @[email protected] · 2025-11-07 · 13:14 UTC

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday! #OTD #WomenInStem #WomeninScience

#radium #polonium #radioactivity #nuclearfission #otd #womeninstem

Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz @[email protected] · 2025-11-04 · 13:14 UTC

In dieser Woche feiern wir gleich 2 Geburtstage von denkwürdigen Wissenschaftlerinnen. Beide wurden an einem 7. November geboren. Die erste ist Marie Curie: Dieses Jahr wäre sie 158 Jahre alt geworden.

Sie führte den Begriff #radioaktiv ein und entdeckte die Elemente #Polonium und #Radium. Zudem stellte sie die Hypothese auf, dass #Radioaktivität eine feste Eigenschaft bestimmter Elemente ist.

Für ihre Arbeiten erhielt sie 1903 den Nobelpreis für Physik und 1911 den Nobelpreis für Chemie.

#radioaktiv #polonium #radium #radioaktivitat

Cees-Jan Kiewiet :rp: :wm: @[email protected] · 2025-11-03 · 13:44 UTC

Sweet! My LEGO tiles of Radium-226 just came in, and they glow in the dark just perfectly ♥️ :

#radioActive #Radium #LEGO #glowInTheDark #Radium226

#radioactive #radium #lego #glowinthedark #radium226

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-09-21 · 18:02 UTC

Let's not forget the Revigator.

#radium
#ads

#radium #ads

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-09-21 · 17:58 UTC

A century ago, a new wellness trend captivated people around the world. Just a small dose of newly discovered supplement could cure almost anything — from gout to headaches to “lack of bodily vigor.”

People paid through the nose to get their hands on the stuff; unfortunately, it melted away much of the rest of their face. The new magic cure was radioactive, and eventually killed or disabled many of its adherents.

https://worldhistory.substack.com/p/the-dark-glow-of-radium

#radium

𝙰𝚗𝚍𝚢 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚔 ~ 𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔬 ⓐ𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔦ⓢ 💀☕ @[email protected] · 2025-09-06 · 03:55 UTC

uncannynoir.blogspot.com/2025/04/unda... #Radium

#radium

derPUPE @[email protected] · 2025-08-04 · 06:59 UTC

"Back in the days #KEYGEN.EXE was the way to get yourself on the other side of the #PayWall"

Instant #DemoScene Flashback <3

"The Soundtrack of #OnlinePiracy"

NFO: https://youtu.be/zHgcrdv8zpM

P.S.: Thanx to #RADIUM ;)

#keygen #paywall #demoscene #onlinepiracy #radium

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-07-24 · 08:41 UTC

@bookstodon

&

Half Lives The Unlikely History of Radium by Lucy Jane Santos, 2020

'In Half Lives, Lucy Santos transports us back to a time when consumers wondered whether mixing radium into chicken feed might result in eggs that could hard-boil themselves; when diners cheerfully drank radioactive cocktails that glowed in the dark; and when people used toothpaste containing lethal thorium oxide in the pursuit of healthy gums.

#books
#nonfiction
#science
#history
#radium

#books #nonfiction #science #history #radium

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-07-24 · 08:37 UTC

@bookstodon

See also:

Radium and the Secret of Life by Luis A. Campos, 2015

Before the hydrogen bomb indelibly associated radioactivity with death, many chemists, physicians, botanists, and geneticists believed that radium might hold the secret to life.

#books
#nonfiction
#science
#history
#radium

#books #nonfiction #science #history #radium

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-07-24 · 08:23 UTC

@bookstodon
2/
More than a historical account, "Radium's Glow" is a compelling exploration of the complex relationship between science and society, the ethical dilemmas of scientific advancement, and the enduring legacy of a discovery that forever changed the world.

#radium
#radioactivity
#ads
#revigator

#radium #radioactivity #ads #revigator

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-07-24 · 08:20 UTC

Radium’s Glow: How Radioactivity Changed Science, Society, and the World by Alex Bugeya, 2024

This captivating book delves into the fascinating and often unsettling history of radium, exploring its profound impact on science, society, and our world. From the initial discovery of invisible rays to the dawn of the nuclear age, it's a journey through scientific breakthroughs, societal crazes, and the devastating consequences of unchecked enthusiasm.

@bookstodon
#books
#history
#radium

#books #history #radium

N-gated Hacker News @[email protected] · 2025-07-08 · 17:50 UTC

🎹 So, #Radium wants us to believe it's reinventing the #music wheel by merging piano rolls and trackers into one groundbreaking interface 🤔. But let's be real, it's just a DAWg trying to fetch attention with flashy visuals and not much bite 🐶. Maybe they should focus more on making music than making graphical spaces "better" 📉.
http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/ #DAW #MusicProduction #TechCritique #Innovation #HackerNews #ngated

#radium #music #daw #musicproduction #techcritique #innovation

Hacker News @[email protected] · 2025-07-08 · 17:49 UTC

Radium – The Music Editor

http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/

#HackerNews #Radium #Music #Editor #Software #MusicProduction #AudioEditing #CreativeTools

#hackernews #radium #music #editor #software #musicproduction

Alameda Post @[email protected] · 2025-07-02 · 14:45 UTC

The Alameda Chamber & Economic Alliance unveiled the winners of its inaugural Innovation Island Excellence Awards. The awards honor the pioneering spirit, groundbreaking initiatives, and significant contributions of local businesses and organizations. Photos by Maurice Ramirez. https://alamedapost.com/news/innovation-island-excellence-awards-announce-inaugural-winners/

#alameda #AlamedaChamberAndEconomicAlliance #CollegeOfAlameda #DanielleMieler #NavierBoat #OaklandRoots #OaklandSoul #radium #RadiumPresents #ScienceCorp

#alameda #alamedachamberandeconomicalliance #collegeofalameda #daniellemieler #navierboat #oaklandroots

IT News @[email protected] · 2025-06-11 · 06:05 UTC

What Marie Curie Left Behind - It is a good bet that if most scientists and engineers were honest, they would mos... - https://hackaday.com/2025/06/10/what-marie-curie-left-behind/ #polonium #science #radium #curie

#polonium #science #radium #curie

Pyrzout :vm: @[email protected] · 2025-06-11 · 03:05 UTC

What Marie Curie Left Behind https://hackaday.com/2025/06/10/what-marie-curie-left-behind/ #polonium #Science #radium #Curie

#polonium #science #radium #curie

Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-05-24 · 07:30 UTC

The Edinburgh Radium Bomb: the thread about the Beechmount Institute

A couple of things happened recently. A fire at the former Corstorphine Hospital prompted me to read up and write about the history of that establishment and it was also the annual Christian Aid bumper booksale in Edinburgh, at which I picked up an excellent history of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh1 (amongst many other things.) These circumstances converged to pique my interest in Beechmount, a grand mansion house which was, for a short time at least, the exotic and atomic sounding National Radium Centre and a pioneer in the field of radiotherapy.

Beechmount, set amongst 8 acres of woodland, was built in 1900 in an Italianate style to designs by Messrs McArthy & Watson as the private residence of Sir George and Lady Mary Anne Anderson. The land was feud from the Beechwood Mains estate at Murrayfield and its name was a simple amalgam of the neighbouring properties of Beechwood and Belmont.

1905 Ordnance Survey 1:25 inch map of Edinburghshire, centred on Beechmount (left), Beechwood (centre) and Belmont (right). Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Sir George was treasurer of the Bank of Scotland from 1898 to 1917, which explains how the coat of arms of that institution came to be found above the house’s main door and grand fireplace. He was the first Scottish “banker knight“, his title conferred for services to his industry. After his retirement in 1917, the Andersons spent their retirement at Beechmount as respected members of Edinburgh society. Sir George died there on December 1st 1923, aged 78. Lady Anne survived him before she too passed away in the house on 26th May 1926, aged 80. Her husband had intended that the house be left to his bank as an official residence for its treasurer but Lady Anne instead bequeathed it to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. She recommended it be used as a convalescent home for servicemen injured during World War I but gave the hospital managers final discretion as to its use. In addition, £5,000 was left to them to help adapt the property to its new purpose.

Sir George Anderson, 1911 photographic portrait by Bassano & Vandyk. © National Portrait Gallery, London

And that may have been that for the Beechmount story had it not been for the rapid development of a new field of medicine. In 1926, the Infirmary had been able to purchase 500mg of the radioactive element Radium – a substantial proportion of the entire global supply of it at that time – as the result of a donation of £5,000. It began to experiment in its use for the treatment of “malignant disease“; cancer. Prior to this, the only known treatment was surgical removal of tumours and the new branch is what we now call Radiotherapy. To begin with, Radium treatments were undertaken in the main buildings of the Infirmary at Lauriston Place by introducing tiny amounts of the element directly into tumours using needles, different coloured threads attached to them indicating the radioactive strength. However it soon became clear that a specialised unit dedicated to the therapy would be desirable and in 1928 it was decided that Lady Anderson’s bequest should be fitted out as such; the Beechmount Radium Institute.

The medical promise of Radium was great but so too were the costs, dangers and difficulties associated with its use. As a result, in 1929 the government established the Radium Trust to source and hold supplies of the wonder material for the nation and the National Radium Commission to oversee its regulation and distribution. The Commission did not want to deal purely with hospitals and so in 1930 a joint partnership between the Royal Infirmary and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh was set up to combine their teaching and research in the field in order that they could mutually benefit from the national supply. In the meantime £11,000 was spent on the Beechmount project and the new facility, with 36 in-patient beds, was opened in October 1932. To begin with patients continued to be treated at the Infirmary and were sent to the new annexe for their pre- and post-treatment convalescent care, however the entire process was soon centralised at the Institute.

The Beechmount Radium Institute, photograph in the Nursing Times, March 1937

The facility was overseen by the respected surgeon John James McIntosh (J.J.M.) Shaw, a military doctor, pioneer in re-constructive plastic surgery and member of both the Radium Trust and Commission. Its first matron was Margaret Colville Marshall, later “Lady Superintendent” of the Infirmary and awarded the OBE for this service. From his base at Beechmount, J.J.M. oversaw the establishment of the Cancer Control Organisation for Edinburgh and Southeast Scotland in 1934, a group of influential (and wealthy) members of society to help organising towards the running costs of the Institute. That same year the Radium Commission approved the Infirmary’s proposal that Beechmount become the National Radium Centre for southeast Scotland, the first of five such centres proposed for the country.

Beechmount on a 1939 Post Office map of Edinburgh, incorrectly labelled as the “East of Scotland Radium Research Institute”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

With the support of the Commission an additional 80omg of Radium was acquired and combined with the existing supply to form a mass unit of the material that was called a “Radium Bomb“. This made history as the first such Bomb outside of London and meant that treatments could be made indirectly, focussing the emitted radiation towards the tumour from a few inches away, rather than introducing it directly on needles. This new method was far more efficient and effective and was far safer for both the patient and the medical staff. The Commission also provided funding to pay for the running costs of the Bomb and to safely maintain and house it.

Radium Bomb from Westminster Hospital, London, in the early 1930s, built by E. Rock Carling. The gram of Radium is housed in the egg-shaped, lead-shielded container on the left. It is controlled from a distance by the operator on the right, who can position the head and then open a shutter in the “Bomb” housing to expose the tumour to radiation for a precise amount of time. CC-by-SA 4.0, from the Science Museum’s Wellcome Trust Collection.

In 1936, J.J.M. reported that “treatment of malignant disease in certain situations such as the throat by means of the radium mass unit or ‘bomb’ has surpassed anything previously known“. He was joined at this time by Dr Margaret (Peggy) Tod as Honorary Associate Assistant Surgeon. Tod stayed for only a year before moving on to become the Deputy Director of the Holt Radium Institute in Manchester, but made “an outstanding contribution to the pioneering work at Beechmount“. The Infirmary’s capacity to administer radiotherapy increased exponentially as a result of dedicating Beechmount to it; in 1939 it reported over 15,000 treatments had been administered, up from only 907 just five years previously.

Margaret Colville Marshall, 1895-1995, obituary photograph.

From 1937, the matron was Jean Ritchie and she served in this post until 1939 when the Institute was closed “for the duration” and re-purposed as a convalescent Auxiliary Hospital; this scheme was directly funded by central government and allowed patients to be removed from the main Infirmary thus freeing up capacity there for dedicated military use or for civilians injured as a result of air raids. The Radium Bomb was removed to the Infirmary and buried at the bottom of a 40 foot deep well shaft to avoid it resulting in a “dirty bomb” in the event it was hit by an air raid. Sadly, Dr Shaw died on wartime active service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Cairo in September 1940, aged 54, having contracted dysentery while serving as the Consultant Surgeon to the Army GHQ.

Colonel J. J. M. Shaw in his Royal Army Medical Corps uniform. Picture uploaded to Ancestry by Martin Bainbridge.

After the war, Radiotherapy in Edinburgh was concentrated at the Western General Hospital and Beechmount was not returned to that use. Instead it remained as a 46 bed convalescent home, operated in tandem with the Corstorphine Home and attached to the Royal Infirmary. In 1974, reorganisation of the medical bureaucracy saw Beechmount detached from the Infirmary and grouped in with other small district hospitals in the Lothians to provide specialist geriatric convalescent care.

One long-standing problem of Beechmount was that the building was accessible from the main road only by a very steep set of stairs or a driveway with multiple hairpin bends. In 1969 an ambulance driver did not correctly apply the brakes of his vehicle resulting in it careering 50 yards down the embankment before progress was arrested by a mature tree. Fortunately the occupants, Mrs Ella Hamersley and Mr Charles Baker, suffered only minor injuries. For the benefit of less mobile visitors to the hospital, members of the Corstorphine Rotary Club used their own cars to provide a shuttle service of rides up and down the gradient during visiting hours.

In 1987 the Lothian Health Board denied that it had plans to either close Beechmount Hospital or convert it into a unit for the specialised treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS. However the following year it proposed the closure and sale of the hospital amid a widespread rationalisation and cost cutting plan. The Board cited the fact that the facility was costing £360,000 a year to run, its opponents countered that the running costs of convalescent hospital beds was only a third of that at major hospitals like the Royal Infirmary or the Western General. But the site was potentially very valuable to developers and with the support of the Secretary of State for Scotland, in what the Daily Record dubbed the “Sick Sale of the Century“, Scotland’s health boards were backed from the top to dispose of a swathe of surplus property on the open market to raise money for their capital budgets. Beechmount was closed in 1989 and the house and grounds were to be sold the following year for £1.8 million. The sale fell through however, as did a scheme to convert it into a Hotel. In 1993 the Health Board intended to build a new dental hospital at Beechmount but found it could not afford the renovation costs of £6 million. The premises were in the interim leased to the Scottish Wildlife Trust who used it for offices and returned to the market and finally sold by the Health Board in 1996, the former staff accommodation being converted into apartments and returned to residential use. It was on the market again in 2018 for offers over £4.5 million and eventually sold. It is currently (2025) being used as emergency accommodation for those experiencing homelessness.

Story of a Great Hospital. The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh 1729-1929, by A. Logan Turner. ↩︎

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

#bankofscotland #corstorphine #health #hospital #hospitals #house

earthling @[email protected] · 2025-05-23 · 11:43 UTC

@cstross

It revigorates software.

#radium

Zhian N. Kamvar @[email protected] · 2025-05-21 · 14:01 UTC

This gives me hope that the bubble will eventually pop. Though it may be too late for a generation or more suffering the secondary effects of the filth that has seeped into our digital environment.

#AI #radium #GenAI
https://infosec.exchange/@varx/114543772651563806

#ai #radium #genai

Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz @[email protected] · 2025-05-15 · 08:15 UTC

Heute wäre Pierre #Curie 166 Jahre alt geworden. Bei der Entdeckung der #Radioaktivität spielten er und seine Frau Marie eine wichtige Rolle. 1898 entdeckten sie u.a. #Radium, ein chemisches Element mit ausschließlich radioaktiven Isotopen.

Obwohl die Curies schon früh vor den Gefahren durch Radium warnten, wurde es als gesundheitsfördernd angepriesen und u.a. in Lebensmitteln und Medikamenten verarbeitet. Zwischenfälle mit Kranken und Toten machten später vielen Menschen die Risiken klar.

#curie #radioaktivitat #radium

Haggo @[email protected] · 2025-05-12 · 19:36 UTC

@marquito
#KI scheint inzwischen so ähnlich wie #Radium ab 1905 zu werden. Alles brauchte Radium und nur mit Radium war es auch wirklich gut.

#ki #radium

St John @[email protected] · 2025-04-14 · 21:43 UTC

Today from the #TimeLibrary: this gorgeous #Hamilton #radium watch, c 1950, with wicked #radiation burns on the dial. Up until the 50s #watches were painted with #radioactive paint so you could read them in the dark. Many of the women who painted the dials got sick and died.

#Libraries #RadiumGirls

#timelibrary #hamilton #radium #radiation #watches #radioactive

vinyl79 @[email protected] · 2025-04-10 · 06:23 UTC

AT | BL | Rannersdorf | Brauhaus der Stadt Wien

Die Brauerei wurde 1901 errichtet, 1905 von der Gemeinde Wien übernommen und 1959 stillgelegt. Das Bier wurde als Stadtbräu bezeichnet [1]. schlot.at zeigt Alka-Kapseln [2] sowie eine Bilddokumentation aus etwa 1932/33 über den damaligen Ausbaustand des Brauhauses der Stadt Wien [2]. Quellen: [1]...Wien-Geschichte-wiki, 10.04.2025 [2]...Alka-Kapseln (Bierflaschenverschlüsse) "Steffel" und "Lager", Eigentum Archiv www.schlot.at (2025) [3]...Brauhaus der Stadt Wien, unpag., […]

https://www.schlot.at/2025/04/10/at-bl-rannersdorf-brauhaus-der-stadt-wien/

#brewery #darre #lager #lainz #malzerei #pivo

Charles Soeder @[email protected] · 2025-03-03 · 19:16 UTC

I found this over the weekend... my #radioactive collection now has a #radium specimen!

#radioactive #radium

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2024-08-30 · 16:00 UTC

Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

"'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

"Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

"All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

"The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

"Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

"Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

"There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

"#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

"There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

"During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

"One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

#KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

#shiprockfair #kleebenally #uraniumdump #sanjuanriver #brendanorrell #censorednews