Rutherford (unit) Rutherford (unit) The rutherford (symbol Rd) is a non-SI unit of radioactive decay. It is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one million nuclei decay per second. It is therefore equivalent to one megabecquerel, and one becquerel equals one microrutherford. One rutherford is equivalent to 2.703 × 10 curie. The unit was introduced in 1946. It was named after British/New Zealand physicist and Nobel laureate Lord Ernest Rutherford (Nobel Prize in 1908), who was an early leader in the study of atomic nucleus disintegrations. After the becquerel was introduced in 1975 as the SI
Induced radioactivity Induced radioactivity Induced radioactivity, also called artificial radioactivity or man-made radioactivity, is the process of using radiation to cause a previously stable material to become radioactive. The husband and wife team of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie (they both began using the surname Joliot-Curie when they married in 1926) discovered induced radioactivity in 1934, and they shared the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. Irène Curie began her research with her parents, Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, studying the natural radioactivity found in radioactive isotopes. Irène and Pierre Joliot-Curie Irene branched off from the Curies to study turning