I'm reminded of the research into the Higgs Boson using CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Most people were apathetic some curious to learn more about physics but there were also some strange reactions including ultimatums about the end of the world.
Although Marie Curie named the phenomenon 'radioactivity' it was Henri Becquerel who may have been first to observe it in 1896. I'm no scientist but I understand radioactivity to be decay of an atom at a fundamental molecular level. Which may have challenged existing understanding of the atomic structure.
Radioactivity was understood over a period of time. How did the public view the discovery/ discoveries over time? Awe, fascination, fear, apathy?
People were extremely interested in it. It was initially heralded as opening up an entirely new world of energy and of medical therapies. People associated radioactivity with "the secret of life" and there were hucksters galore to take advantage of that feeling. It was seen as possible inaugurating an entirely new age of human beings. Popular books like Frederick Soddy's The Interpretation of Radium (1909) explained the latent energy and potential in the atom; science-fiction writers like H.G. Wells absorbed these new discoveries and incorporated them into new, speculative fiction about the amazing future to come.
Fear of radioactivity came second, after the hype. There were indications that radioactivity and these new effects had hazards — X-ray operators suffered horrific burns because of the uncalibrated nature of the early devices — but the promising, "vitalizing" effects seemed to dominate until several cases indicated the carcinogenic nature of the new technology. The Radium Girls cases of the 1920s, and the horrific death of millionaire Eben Byers in the 1930s after essentially overdosing on radiation treatments ("The Radium Water Worked Fine until His Jaw Came Off"), shifted the public perception into one of horror.
All of this was well before the atomic bomb, and indeed provided the context into which the atomic bomb would be interpreted — both the hype and the fear.
The best overall book on this subject is Spencer Weart's Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard University Press, 1988), but for some of the association of radioactivity with life itself, see Luis Campos, Radium and the Secret of Life (University of Chicago Press, 2015), in particular.
