The eighth annual S. Dexter Squibb Lecture series took place on October 20, 2005. The speaker was Dr. Catherine H. Middlecamp, Director of the Chemistry Learning Center, University of Wisconsin - Madison, and recipient of the American Chemical Society's 2006 Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences.
A biographical sketch of Dr. Middlecamp
Since the beginning of time, our world has contained radioactive substances. But only in the past century did humans discover this radioactivity and put it to various uses, some more successful than others. This presentation will interweave two stories of radioactive substances: the radium girls and the firecracker boys. The first relates to the radium dial workers, women who in the 1920s used radium paint to create glow-in-the-dark watches and dials. The second relates to Edward Teller and his band of physicists who in the 1950s proposed to use nuclear devices to blast out a harbor in Alaska. These stories connect with issues and topics relevant both now and in the years to come.
Our world is both naturally radioactive and nonradioactive. If you were curious and wanted to locate the radioactive substances nearby to you, your search quickly would lead you to uranium and its decay products. Why uranium? And over the years, to what uses has uranium been put? What are (and aren't) the effects of its radioactivity and under what circumstances are these effects hazardous? This presentation will take you on a lively romp through your home, your backyard, some other folks' backyards, and even through some of the shops in your neighborhood.