How was Irène Joliot-Curie awarded the Noble Prize?

By creating radioactive nitrogen from boron, radioactive phosphorus isotopes from aluminum, and radioactive silicon from magnesium, the Joliot-Curies realized the alchemist’s ideal of turning one element into another. The unstable isotope of phosphorus was produced when the naturally occurring stable isotope of aluminum was exposed to alpha particles: 27Al + 4He = 30P + 1n. This discovery is formally known as positron emission or beta decay, where a proton in the radioactive nucleus changes to a neutron and releases a positron and an electron neutrino. By then, the application of radioactive materials for use in medicine was growing, and this discovery allowed radioactive materials to be created quickly, cheaply, and plentifully. The 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry received recognition from the scientific world.