Primer texto mexicano sobre Radioactividad y Física Atómica

Literature about physical sciences has always been scarce in our country,but even more so before its professionalization among us. For this reason, itis remarkable the existence of the book Compendio de los fen´omenos de laRadioactividad y nociones sobre la Constituci´on de la Materia, published inMexico City in 1932, in which they were treated with certain amplitude thosesubjects, so it turns out to be of some importance to those who investigatethe development of Physics in this nation. This work, written by the engineerJuan Mateos, was not a translation to Spanish of a book written in anotherlanguage elsewhere, but it is an original contribution in our language of itsauthor, which is relevant, because it shows the early existence of Mexicanswho were aware, at least in general, of the main advances in the research toestablish the nature of matter. In this article, a summary of the materialdealt in this pioneer book is given, because we consider that it sheds lighton the initial efforts to understand matter made in our nation, and to makeknown this new field for its research in Physics in our country.