There are some things on the periodic table that are hardly there at all. The heaviest of all the column 1 elements—the so-called alkali* metals—is also the rarest. Its most abundant isotope (Fr-223) has a half-life of only 22 minutes! There is so little of the stuff (certainly much less than a kilogram) in the earth’s crust at any one time that many of Francium’s physical properties (density, melting point, etc.) are only inferred.

Francium was discovered by Marguerite Perey. She had been a student of Marie Curie’s and at the time of her breakthrough was working with the Curie’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie. She was the first woman elected to the French Academy of sciences (1962). Her famous mentors were denied that honor: Marie died in 1935 and Irene in 1956. All three women suffered from radiation exposure due to the risky nature of their work. All three died of complications due to those exposures.

Perey didn’t get a Nobel Prize for isolating what turned out to be the last of the “natural” elements. In fact interest in her work faded quickly despite its significance. Here’s a picture of the crew from the Radium Institute in Paris in 1930. Perey is seated on the far left:

Many other women made fundamental contributions to nuclear science: Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Lise Meitner come to mind immediately. And certainly other women have had their work neglected like Perey, with Rosalind Franklin being the most obvious, I suppose. Ultimately one has to work for one’s own satisfaction as counting on the respect and recognition of others is a fool’s game.

*Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, and Cesium