Marie sklodowska curie created the word

In this Slavic name, the surname is Skłodowska, sometimes transliterated as Sklodowska.

Marie Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Curie c. 1920
Born	Maria Salomea Skłodowska 7 November 1867 Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire[1]
Died	4 July 1934 (aged 66) Passy, Haute-Savoie, France
Cause of death	Aplastic anemia[2]
Citizenship	Poland (by birth) France (by marriage)
Alma mater	University of Paris ESPCI[3]
Known for	Pioneering research on radioactivity Discovering polonium and radium
Spouse	Pierre Curie ​ ​ (m. 1895; died 1906)​
Children	Irène Ève
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) Davy Medal (1903) Matteucci Medal (1904) Actonian Prize (1907) Elliott Cresson Medal (1909) Albert Medal (1910) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911) Willard Gibbs Award (1921) Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh (1931)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics chemistry
Institutions	University of Paris Institut du Radium École Normale Supérieure French Academy of Medicine International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation
Thesis	Recherches sur les substances radioactives (Research on Radioactive Substances) (1903)
Doctoral advisor	Gabriel Lippmann
Doctoral students	André-Louis Debierne Ladislas Goldstein Émile Henriot Irène Joliot-Curie Óscar Moreno Marguerite Perey Francis Perrin
Signature
Notes
She is the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two sciences.

Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( KURE-ee,^[4] French pronunciation: ​[maʁi kyʁi], Polish pronunciation: [ˈmarja skwɔˈdɔfska kʲiˈri]; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, Polish: [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska]; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first-ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.^[5]

She was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaw’s clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her elder sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. In 1895 she married the French physicist Pierre Curie, and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with him and with the physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the theory of «radioactivity»—a term she coined.^[6][7] In 1906 Pierre Curie died in a Paris street accident. Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium, using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes. Under her direction, the world’s first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1920, and the Curie Institute in Warsaw in 1932; both remain major medical research centres. During World War I she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.

While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames,^[8][9] never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.^[10] She named the first chemical element she discovered polonium, after her native country.^[a] Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.^[12] In addition to her Nobel Prizes, she has received numerous other honours and tributes; in 1995 she became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Paris Panthéon,^[13] and Poland declared 2011 the Year of Marie Curie during the International Year of Chemistry. She is the subject of numerous biographical works, where she is also known as Madame Curie.

Life

Early years

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.^[14] The elder siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania) were Zofia (born 1862, nicknamed Zosia), Józef [pl] (born 1863, nicknamed Józio), Bronisława (born 1865, nicknamed Bronia) and Helena (born 1866, nicknamed Hela).^[15][16]

On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland’s independence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–65).^[17] This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria and her elder siblings, to a difficult struggle to get ahead in life.^[17] Maria’s paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski [pl], had been principal of the Lublin primary school attended by Bolesław Prus,^[18] who became a leading figure in Polish literature.^[19]

Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) for boys. After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home and instructed his children in its use.^[15] He was eventually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on a bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house.^[15] Maria’s mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls; she resigned from the position after Maria was born.^[15] She died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria was ten years old.^[15] Less than three years earlier, Maria’s oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder.^[15] Maria’s father was an atheist, her mother a devout Catholic.^[20] The deaths of Maria’s mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic.^[21]

When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska; next, she attended a gymnasium for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal.^[14] After a collapse, possibly due to depression,^[15] she spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring.^[14] Unable to enroll in a regular institution of higher education because she was a woman, she and her sister Bronisława became involved with the clandestine Flying University (sometimes translated as Floating University), a Polish patriotic institution of higher learning that admitted women students.^[14][15]

Maria made an agreement with her sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława’s medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later.^[14][22] In connection with this, Maria took a position first as a home tutor in Warsaw, then for two years as a governess in Szczuki with a landed family, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father.^[14][22] While working for the latter family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, a future eminent mathematician.^[22] His parents rejected the idea of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them.^[22] Maria’s loss of the relationship with Żorawski was tragic for both. He soon earned a doctorate and pursued an academic career as a mathematician, becoming a professor and rector of Kraków University. Still, as an old man and a mathematics professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively before the statue of Maria Skłodowska that had been erected in 1935 before the Radium Institute, which she had founded in 1932.^[17][23]

At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława—who a few months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski, a Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her a year and a half longer to gather the necessary funds.^[14] She was helped by her father, who was able to secure a more lucrative position again.^[22] All that time she continued to educate herself, reading books, exchanging letters, and being tutored herself.^[22] In early 1889 she returned home to her father in Warsaw.^[14] She continued working as a governess and remained there until late 1891.^[22] She tutored, studied at the Flying University, and began her practical scientific training (1890–91) in a chemical laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw’s Old Town.^[14][15][22] The laboratory was run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been an assistant in Saint Petersburg to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev.^[14][22][24]

Life in Paris

In late 1891, she left Poland for France.^[25] In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she would be known in France) briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a garret closer to the university, in the Latin Quarter, and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris, where she enrolled in late 1891.^[26][27] She subsisted on her meagre resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the clothes she had. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat.^[27] Skłodowska studied during the day and tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. In 1893, she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued studying at the University of Paris and with the aid of a fellowship she was able to earn a second degree in 1894.^[14][27][b]

Skłodowska had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels, commissioned by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry.^[27] That same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together.^[28] Pierre Curie was an instructor at The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI Paris).^[14] They were introduced by Polish physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned that she was looking for a larger laboratory space, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre could access.^[14][27] Though Curie did not have a large laboratory, he was able to find some space for Skłodowska where she was able to begin work.^[27]

Their mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for one another.^[14][27] Eventually, Pierre proposed marriage, but at first Skłodowska did not accept as she was still planning to go back to her native country. Curie, however, declared that he was ready to move with her to Poland, even if it meant being reduced to teaching French.^[14] Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Skłodowska returned to Warsaw, where she visited her family.^[27] She was still labouring under the illusion that she would be able to work in her chosen field in Poland, but she was denied a place at Kraków University because of sexism in academia.^[17] A letter from Pierre convinced her to return to Paris to pursue a Ph.D.^[27] At Skłodowska’s insistence, Curie had written up his research on magnetism and received his own doctorate in March 1895; he was also promoted to professor at the School.^[27] A contemporary quip would call Skłodowska «Pierre’s biggest discovery».^[17]

On 26 July 1895, they were married in Sceaux;^[29] neither wanted a religious service.^[14][27] Curie’s dark blue outfit, worn instead of a bridal gown, would serve her for many years as a laboratory outfit.^[27] They shared two pastimes: long bicycle trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. In Pierre, Marie had found a new love, a partner, and a scientific collaborator on whom she could depend.^[17]

New elements

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the existence of X-rays, though the mechanism behind their production was not yet understood.^[30] In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power.^[30] He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence, did not depend on an external source of energy but seemed to arise spontaneously from uranium itself. Influenced by these two important discoveries, Curie decided to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research for a thesis.^[14][30]

She used an innovative technique to investigate samples. Fifteen years earlier, her husband and his brother had developed a version of the electrometer, a sensitive device for measuring electric charge.^[30] Using her husband’s electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity. Using this technique, her first result was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uranium present.^[30] She hypothesized that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules but must come from the atom itself.^[30] This hypothesis was an important step in disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible.^[30][31]

In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support her family, Curie began teaching at the École Normale Supérieure.^[25] The Curies did not have a dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried out in a converted shed next to ESPCI.^[25] The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof.^[32] They were unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure attendant on their continued unprotected work with radioactive substances. ESPCI did not sponsor her research, but she would receive subsidies from metallurgical and mining companies and from various organizations and governments.^[25][32][33]

Curie’s systematic studies included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite).^[32] Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small quantities of another substance that was far more active than uranium.^[32][34] She began a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and by 1898 she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive.^[30] Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By mid-1898 he was so invested in it that he decided to drop his work on crystals and to join her.^[25][32]

The [research] idea [writes Reid] was her own; no one helped her formulate it, and although she took it to her husband for his opinion she clearly established her ownership of it. She later recorded the fact twice in her biography of her husband to ensure there was no chance whatever of any ambiguity. It [is] likely that already at this early stage of her career [she] realized that… many scientists would find it difficult to believe that a woman could be capable of the original work in which she was involved.^[35]

She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority. Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented his discovery to the Académie des Sciences the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity (and even a Nobel Prize), would instead have gone to Silvanus Thompson. Curie chose the same rapid means of publication. Her paper, giving a brief and simple account of her work, was presented for her to the Académie on 12 April 1898 by her former professor, Gabriel Lippmann.^[36] Even so, just as Thompson had been beaten by Becquerel, so Curie was beaten in the race to tell of her discovery that thorium gives off rays in the same way as uranium; two months earlier, Gerhard Carl Schmidt had published his own finding in Berlin.^[37]

At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: «The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium.» She later would recall how she felt «a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible.»^[37] On 14 April 1898, the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tonnes of the ore.^[37]

In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element they named «polonium», in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires (Russian, Austrian, and Prussian).^[14] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named «radium», from the Latin word for «ray».^[25][32][38] In the course of their research, they also coined the word «radioactivity».^[14]

To prove their discoveries beyond any doubt, the Curies sought to isolate polonium and radium in pure form.^[32] Pitchblende is a complex mineral; the chemical separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The discovery of polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bismuth, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance in the ore.^[32] Radium, however, was more elusive; it is closely related chemically to barium, and pitchblende contains both elements. By 1898 the Curies had obtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach.^[39] The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium salt by differential crystallization. From a tonne of pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated in 1902. In 1910, she isolated pure radium metal.^[32][40] She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only 138 days.^[32]

Between 1898 and 1902, the Curies published, jointly or separately, a total of 32 scientific papers, including one that announced that, when exposed to radium, diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster than healthy cells.^[41]

In 1900, Curie became the first woman faculty member at the École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined the faculty of the University of Paris.^[42][43] In 1902 she visited Poland on the occasion of her father’s death.^[25]

In June 1903, supervised by Gabriel Lippmann, Curie was awarded her doctorate from the University of Paris.^[25][44] That month the couple were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to.^[45] Meanwhile, a new industry began developing, based on radium.^[42] The Curies did not patent their discovery and benefited little from this increasingly profitable business.^[32][42]

Nobel Prizes

In December 1903 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, «in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.»^[25] At first the committee had intended to honour only Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, but a committee member and advocate for women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to the situation, and after his complaint, Marie’s name was added to the nomination.^[46] Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize.^[25]

Curie and her husband declined to go to Stockholm to receive the prize in person; they were too busy with their work, and Pierre Curie, who disliked public ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill.^[45][46] As Nobel laureates were required to deliver a lecture, the Curies finally undertook the trip in 1905.^[46] The award money allowed the Curies to hire their first laboratory assistant.^[46] Following the award of the Nobel Prize, and galvanized by an offer from the University of Geneva, which offered Pierre Curie a position, the University of Paris gave him a professorship and the chair of physics, although the Curies still did not have a proper laboratory.^[25][42][43] Upon Pierre Curie’s complaint, the University of Paris relented and agreed to furnish a new laboratory, but it would not be ready until 1906.^[46]

In December 1904, Curie gave birth to their second daughter, Ève.^[46] She hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland.^[10]

On 19 April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed in a road accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly.^[25][47] Curie was devastated by her husband’s death.^[48] On 13 May 1906 the physics department of the University of Paris decided to retain the chair that had been created for her late husband and offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to create a world-class laboratory as a tribute to her husband Pierre.^[48][49] She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.^[25]

Curie’s quest to create a new laboratory did not end with the University of Paris, however. In her later years, she headed the Radium Institute (Institut du radium, now Curie Institute, Institut Curie), a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris.^[49] The initiative for creating the Radium Institute had come in 1909 from Pierre Paul Émile Roux, director of the Pasteur Institute, who had been disappointed that the University of Paris was not giving Curie a proper laboratory and had suggested that she move to the Pasteur Institute.^[25][50] Only then, with the threat of Curie leaving, did the University of Paris relent, and eventually the Curie Pavilion became a joint initiative of the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute.^[50]

In 1910 Curie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive emissions that was eventually named for her and Pierre: the curie.^[49] Nevertheless, in 1911 the French Academy of Sciences failed, by one^[25] or two votes,^[51] to elect her to membership in the academy. Elected instead was Édouard Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the wireless telegraph.^[52] It was only over half a century later, in 1962, that a doctoral student of Curie’s, Marguerite Perey, became the first woman elected to membership in the academy.

Despite Curie’s fame as a scientist working for France, the public’s attitude tended toward xenophobia—the same that had led to the Dreyfus affair—which also fuelled false speculation that Curie was Jewish.^[25][51] During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press as a foreigner and atheist.^[51] Her daughter later remarked on the French press’s hypocrisy in portraying Curie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French honour, but portraying her as a French heroine when she received foreign honours such as her Nobel Prizes.^[25]

In 1911 it was revealed that Curie was involved in a year-long affair with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre Curie’s,^[53] a married man who was estranged from his wife.^[51] This resulted in a press scandal that was exploited by her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mid-40s) was five years older than Langevin and was misrepresented in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker.^[54] When the scandal broke, she was away at a conference in Belgium; on her return, she found an angry mob in front of her house and had to seek refuge, with her daughters, in the home of her friend, Camille Marbo.^[51]

International recognition for her work had been growing to new heights, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, overcoming opposition prompted by the Langevin scandal, honoured her a second time, with the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[17] This award was «in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.»^[55] Because of the negative publicity due to her affair with Langevin, the chair of the Nobel committee, Svante Arrhenius, attempted to prevent her attendance at the official ceremony for her Nobel Prize in Chemistry, citing her questionable moral standing. Curie replied that she would be present at the ceremony, because «the prize has been given to her for her discovery of polonium and radium» and that «there is no relation between her scientific work and the facts of her private life».

She was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes, and remains alone with Linus Pauling as Nobel laureates in two fields each. A delegation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, encouraged her to return to Poland and continue her research in her native country.^[17] Curie’s second Nobel Prize enabled her to persuade the French government to support the Radium Institute, built in 1914, where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine.^[50] A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, she was hospitalised with depression and a kidney ailment. For most of 1912, she avoided public life but did spend time in England with her friend and fellow physicist, Hertha Ayrton. She returned to her laboratory only in December, after a break of about 14 months.^[55]

In 1912 the Warsaw Scientific Society offered her the directorship of a new laboratory in Warsaw but she declined, focusing on the developing Radium Institute to be completed in August 1914, and on a new street named Rue Pierre-Curie.^[50][55] She was appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.^[56] She visited Poland in 1913 and was welcomed in Warsaw but the visit was mostly ignored by the Russian authorities. The institute’s development was interrupted by the coming war, as most researchers were drafted into the French Army, and it fully resumed its activities in 1919.^[50][55][57]

World War I

During World War I, Curie recognised that wounded soldiers were best served if operated upon as soon as possible.^[58] She saw a need for field radiological centres near the front lines to assist battlefield surgeons,^[57] including to obviate amputations when in fact limbs could be saved.^[59][60] After a quick study of radiology, anatomy, and automotive mechanics she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, auxiliary generators, and developed mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known as petites Curies («Little Curies»).^[57] She became the director of the Red Cross Radiology Service and set up France’s first military radiology centre, operational by late 1914.^[57] Assisted at first by a military doctor and her 17-year-old daughter Irène, Curie directed the installation of 20 mobile radiological vehicles and another 200 radiological units at field hospitals in the first year of the war.^[50][57] Later, she began training other women as aides.^[61]

In 1915, Curie produced hollow needles containing «radium emanation», a colourless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as radon, to be used for sterilizing infected tissue. She provided the radium from her own one-gram supply.^[61] It is estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units.^[21][50] Busy with this work, she carried out very little scientific research during that period.^[50] In spite of all her humanitarian contributions to the French war effort, Curie never received any formal recognition of it from the French government.^[57]

Also, promptly after the war started, she attempted to donate her gold Nobel Prize medals to the war effort but the French National Bank refused to accept them.^[61] She did buy war bonds, using her Nobel Prize money.^[61] She said:

I am going to give up the little gold I possess. I shall add to this the scientific medals, which are quite useless to me. There is something else: by sheer laziness I had allowed the money for my second Nobel Prize to remain in Stockholm in Swedish crowns. This is the chief part of what we possess. I should like to bring it back here and invest it in war loans. The state needs it. Only, I have no illusions: this money will probably be lost.^[58]

She was also an active member in committees of Polonia in France dedicated to the Polish cause.^[62] After the war, she summarized her wartime experiences in a book, Radiology in War (1919).^[61]

Postwar years

In 1920, for the 25th anniversary of the discovery of radium, the French government established a stipend for her; its previous recipient was Louis Pasteur (1822–95).^[50] In 1921, she was welcomed triumphantly when she toured the United States to raise funds for research on radium. Mrs. William Brown Meloney, after interviewing Curie, created a Marie Curie Radium Fund and raised money to buy radium, publicising her trip.^[50][63][c]

In 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding received her at the White House to present her with the 1 gram of radium collected in the United States, and the First Lady praised her as an example of a professional achiever who was also a supportive wife.^[5][65] Before the meeting, recognising her growing fame abroad, and embarrassed by the fact that she had no French official distinctions to wear in public, the French government offered her a Legion of Honour award, but she refused.^[65][66] In 1922 she became a fellow of the French Academy of Medicine.^[50] She also travelled to other countries, appearing publicly and giving lectures in Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and Czechoslovakia.^[67]

Led by Curie, the Institute produced four more Nobel Prize winners, including her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and her son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie.^[68] Eventually it became one of the world’s four major radioactivity-research laboratories, the others being the Cavendish Laboratory, with Ernest Rutherford; the Institute for Radium Research, Vienna, with Stefan Meyer; and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, with Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner.^[68][69]

In August 1922 Marie Curie became a member of the League of Nations’ newly created International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.^[70][13] She sat on the committee until 1934 and contributed to League of Nations’ scientific coordination with other prominent researchers such as Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, and Henri Bergson.^[71] In 1923 she wrote a biography of her late husband, titled Pierre Curie.^[72] In 1925 she visited Poland to participate in a ceremony laying the foundations for Warsaw’s Radium Institute.^[50] Her second American tour, in 1929, succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute with radium; the Institute opened in 1932, with her sister Bronisława its director.^[50][65] These distractions from her scientific labours, and the attendant publicity, caused her much discomfort but provided resources for her work.^[65] In 1930 she was elected to the International Atomic Weights Committee, on which she served until her death.^[73] In 1931, Curie was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.^[74]

Death

Curie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934.^[17][75] A few months later, on 4 July 1934, she died aged 66 at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation, causing damage to her bone marrow.^[50]

The damaging effects of ionising radiation were not known at the time of her work, which had been carried out without the safety measures later developed.^[75] She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket,^[76] and she stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the faint light that the substances gave off in the dark.^[77] Curie was also exposed to X-rays from unshielded equipment while serving as a radiologist in field hospitals during the war.^[61] In fact, when Curie’s body was exhumed in 1995, the French Office de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants (ORPI) «concluded that she could not have been exposed to lethal levels of radium while she was alive». They pointed out that radium poses a risk only if it is ingested,^[78] and speculated that her illness was more likely to have been due to her use of radiography during the First World War.^[79]

She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre.^[50] Sixty years later, in 1995, in honour of their achievements, the remains of both were transferred to the Paris Panthéon. Their remains were sealed in a lead lining because of the radioactivity.^[80] She became the second woman to be interred at the Panthéon (after Sophie Berthelot) and the first woman to be honoured with interment in the Panthéon on her own merits.^[13]

Because of their levels of radioactive contamination, her papers from the 1890s are considered too dangerous to handle.^[81] Even her cookbooks are highly radioactive.^[82] Her papers are kept in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.^[82] In her last year, she worked on a book, Radioactivity, which was published posthumously in 1935.^[75]

Legacy

The physical and societal aspects of the Curies’ work contributed to shaping the world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.^[83] Cornell University professor L. Pearce Williams observes:

The result of the Curies’ work was epoch-making. Radium’s radioactivity was so great that it could not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle of the conservation of energy and therefore forced a reconsideration of the foundations of physics. On the experimental level the discovery of radium provided men like Ernest Rutherford with sources of radioactivity with which they could probe the structure of the atom. As a result of Rutherford’s experiments with alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was first postulated. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium appeared to offer a means by which cancer could be successfully attacked.^[40]

If Curie’s work helped overturn established ideas in physics and chemistry, it has had an equally profound effect in the societal sphere. To attain her scientific achievements, she had to overcome barriers, in both her native and her adoptive country, that were placed in her way because she was a woman. This aspect of her life and career is highlighted in Françoise Giroud’s Marie Curie: A Life, which emphasizes Curie’s role as a feminist precursor.^[17]

She was known for her honesty and moderate lifestyle.^[25][83] Having received a small scholarship in 1893, she returned it in 1897 as soon as she began earning her keep.^[14][33] She gave much of her first Nobel Prize money to friends, family, students, and research associates.^[17] In an unusual decision, Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.^{[84] [d]} She insisted that monetary gifts and awards be given to the scientific institutions she was affiliated with rather than to her.^[83] She and her husband often refused awards and medals.^[25] Albert Einstein reportedly remarked that she was probably the only person who could not be corrupted by fame.^[17]

Honours and tributes

As one of the most famous scientists in history, Marie Curie has become an icon in the scientific world and has received tributes from across the globe, even in the realm of pop culture.^[85]

In 1995, she became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon, Paris.^[13]

In a 2009 poll carried out by New Scientist, she was voted the «most inspirational woman in science». Curie received 25.1 percent of all votes cast, nearly twice as many as second-place Rosalind Franklin (14.2 per cent).^[86][87]

On the centenary of her second Nobel Prize, Poland declared 2011 the Year of Marie Curie;^[88] and the United Nations declared that this would be the International Year of Chemistry.^[89] An artistic installation celebrating «Madame Curie» filled the Jacobs Gallery at San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art.^[90] On 7 November, Google celebrated the anniversary of her birth with a special Google Doodle.^[91] On 10 December, the New York Academy of Sciences celebrated the centenary of Marie Curie’s second Nobel Prize in the presence of Princess Madeleine of Sweden.^[92]

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences.^[93] Awards that she received include:

• Nobel Prize in Physics (1903, with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel)^[25]
• Davy Medal (1903, with Pierre)^[67][94]
• Matteucci Medal (1904, with Pierre)^[94]
• Actonian Prize (1907)^[95]
• Elliott Cresson Medal (1909)^[96]
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)^[17]
• Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society (1921)^[97]

She received numerous honorary degrees from universities across the world.^[65] In Poland, she received honorary doctorates from the Lwów Polytechnic (1912),^[98] Poznań University (1922), Kraków’s Jagiellonian University (1924), and the Warsaw Polytechnic (1926).^[89] In 1920 she became the first female member of The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.^[99] In 1921, in the U.S., she was awarded membership in the Iota Sigma Pi women scientists’ society.^[100] In 1924, she became an Honorary Member of the Polish Chemical Society.^[101] Marie Curie’s 1898 publication with her husband and their collaborator Gustave Bémont^[102] of their discovery of radium and polonium was honoured by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society presented to the ESPCI Paris in 2015.^[103][104]

Entities that have been named in her honour include:

• The curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in honour of her and Pierre Curie (although the commission which agreed on the name never clearly stated whether the standard was named after Pierre, Marie, or both).^[105]
• The element with atomic number 96 was named curium.^[106]
• Three radioactive minerals are also named after the Curies: curite, sklodowskite, and cuprosklodowskite.^[107]
• The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship program of the European Union for young scientists wishing to work in a foreign country is named after her.^[108]
• In 2007, a metro station in Paris was renamed to honour both of the Curies.^[107]
• the sole Polish nuclear reactor in operation, the research reactor Maria, is named after her.^[109]
• The 7000 Curie asteroid is also named after her.^[107]
• A KLM McDonnell Douglas MD-11 (registration PH-KCC) is named in her honour.^[110]
• In 2011, a new Warsaw bridge over the Vistula River was named in her honour.^[111]
• In January 2020, Satellogic, a high-resolution Earth observation imaging and analytics company, launched a ÑuSat type micro-satellite; ÑuSat 8, also known as Marie, was named in her honour.^[112]
• The Marie-Curie station, a planned underground Réseau express métropolitain (REM) station in the borough of Saint-Laurent in Montreal is named in her honour.^[113] A nearby road, Avenue Marie Curie, is also named in her honour.
• The molecular docking task CurieMariedock is a component of the Slovenian distributed computing project SiDock (which runs under the aegis of BOINC); its focus is SARS‑CoV‑2.^{[114][115][116]}
• Mount Curie in New Zealand’s Paparoa Range was named after her in 1970 by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.^[117]

Several institutions presently bear her name, including the two Curie institutes which she founded: the Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Warsaw, and the Institut Curie in Paris. The Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, in Lublin, was founded in 1944; and the Pierre and Marie Curie University (also known as Paris VI) was France’s pre-eminent science university, which would later merge to form the Sorbonne University. In Britain, the Marie Curie charity was organized in 1948 to care for the terminally ill.^[118]
Two museums are devoted to Marie Curie. In 1967, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum was established in Warsaw’s «New Town», at her birthplace on ulica Freta (Freta Street).^[17] Her Paris laboratory is preserved as the Musée Curie, open since 1992.^[119]
Curie’s likeness has appeared on banknotes, stamps and coins around the world.^[107] She was featured on the Polish late-1980s 20,000-złoty banknote^[120] as well as on the last French 500-franc note, before the franc was replaced by the euro.^[121] Curie-themed postage stamps from Mali, the Republic of Togo, Zambia, and the Republic of Guinea actually show a picture of Susan Marie Frontczak portraying Curie in a 2001 picture by Paul Schroeder.^[122]
Her likeness or name has appeared on several artistic works. In 1935, Michalina Mościcka, wife of Polish President Ignacy Mościcki, unveiled a statue of Marie Curie before Warsaw’s Radium Institute; during the 1944 Second World War Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi German occupation, the monument was damaged by gunfire; after the war it was decided to leave the bullet marks on the statue and its pedestal.^[17] Her name is included on the Monument to the X-ray and Radium Martyrs of All Nations, erected in Hamburg, Germany in 1936.^[123] In 1955 Jozef Mazur created a stained glass panel of her, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Medallion, featured in the University at Buffalo Polish Room.^[124] In 2011, on the centenary of Marie Curie’s second Nobel Prize, an allegorical mural was painted on the façade of her Warsaw birthplace. It depicted an infant Maria Skłodowska holding a test tube from which emanated the elements that she would discover as an adult: polonium and radium.

In popular culture

Numerous biographies are devoted to her, including:

• Ève Curie (Marie Curie’s daughter), Madame Curie, 1938.
• Françoise Giroud, Marie Curie: A Life, 1987.
• Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, 2005.^[89]
• Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout, 2011,^[125] adapted into the 2019 British film.

Marie Curie has been the subject of a number of films:

• 1943: Madame Curie, a U.S. Oscar-nominated film by Mervyn LeRoy starring Greer Garson.^[72]
• 1997: Les Palmes de M. Schutz, a French film adapted from a play of the same title, and directed by Claude Pinoteau. Marie Curie is played by Isabelle Huppert.^[126]
• 2014: Marie Curie, une femme sur le front, a French-Belgian film, directed by Alain Brunard [fr] and starring Dominique Reymond.
• 2016: Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge, a European co-production by Marie Noëlle starring Karolina Gruszka.
• 2019: Radioactive, a British film by Marjane Satrapi starring Rosamund Pike.

Curie is the subject of the 2013 play, False Assumptions, by Lawrence Aronovitch, in which the ghosts of three other women scientists observe events in her life.^[127] Curie has also been portrayed by Susan Marie Frontczak in her play, Manya: The Living History of Marie Curie, a one-woman show which by 2014 had been performed in 30 U.S. states and nine countries.^[122]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Nonfiction

• Curie, Marie (1921). The Discovery of Radium . Poughkeepsie: Vassar College.
• Curie, Eve (2001). Madame Curie: A Biography. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81038-1.
• Dzienkiewicz, Marta (2017). Polish Pioneers: Book of Prominent Poles. Rzezak, Joanna; Karski, Piotr; Monod-Gayraud, Agnes. Warsaw. ISBN 9788365341686. OCLC 1060750234.
• Giroud, Françoise (1986). Marie Curie: A life. Holmes & Meier. ISBN 978-0-8419-0977-9. translated by Lydia Davis.
• Kaczorowska, Teresa (2011). Córka mazowieckich równin, czyli, Maria Skłodowska-Curie z Mazowsza [Daughter of the Mazovian Plains: Maria Skłodowska–Curie of Mazowsze] (in Polish). Związek Literatów Polskich, Oddział w Ciechanowie. ISBN 978-83-89408-36-5. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
• Opfell, Olga S. (1978). The Lady Laureates : Women Who Have Won the Nobel Prize. Metuchen, N.J.& London: Scarecrow Press. pp. 147–164. ISBN 978-0-8108-1161-4.
• Pasachoff, Naomi (1996). Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509214-1.
• Quinn, Susan (1996). Marie Curie: A Life. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-201-88794-5.
• Redniss, Lauren (2010). Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-135132-7.
• Wirten, Eva Hemmungs (2015). Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-23584-4. Retrieved 15 March 2016.

Fiction

• Olov Enquist, Per (2006). The Book about Blanche and Marie. New York: Overlook. ISBN 978-1-58567-668-2. A 2004 novel by Per Olov Enquist featuring Maria Skłodowska-Curie, neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, and his Salpêtrière patient «Blanche» (Marie Wittman). The English translation was published in 2006.

External links

One of the most recognizable figures in science, “Madame Curie” has captured the public imagination for more than 100 years and inspired generations of women scientists.

Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867–1934) was the first person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes: the first in 1903 in physics, shared with Pierre Curie (her husband) and Henri Becquerel for the discovery of the phenomenon of radioactivity, and the second in 1911 in chemistry for the discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium.

From Poland to Paris and the Radioactive

The daughter of impoverished Polish schoolteachers, Marie Sklodowska worked as a governess in Poland to support her older sister in Paris, whom she eventually joined there. Already entranced with chemistry, she took advanced scientific degrees at the Sorbonne, where she met and married Pierre Curie, a physicist who had achieved fame for his work on the piezoelectric effect. For her thesis she chose to work in a field just opened up by Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays and Becquerel’s observation of the mysterious power of samples of uranium salts to expose photographic film. Curie soon convinced her husband to join in the endeavor of isolating the “radioactive” substance—a word she coined.
 

Polonium and Radium

In 1898, after laboriously isolating various substances by successive chemical reactions and crystallizations of the products, which they then tested for their ability to ionize air, the Curies announced the discovery of polonium, and then of radium salts weighing about 0.1 gram that had been derived from tons of uranium ore. After Pierre’s death in 1906, when he was accidentally struck by a horse-drawn wagon, Marie achieved their objective of producing a pure specimen of radium.

Just before World War I radium institutes were established for her in France and in Poland to pursue the scientific and medical uses of radioactivity. During the war Curie organized a field system of portable X-ray machines to help in treating wounded French soldiers.
 

A Tragic End

In the midst of her busy scientific career Curie raised two daughters—in part with the help of her father-in-law. Her elder daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, became a Nobel Prize–winning chemist, also with her husband, Frédéric Joliot. Mother and daughter both eventually died of leukemia induced by their long exposure to radioactive materials.
 

The information contained in this biography was last updated on December 4, 2017.

(1867-1934)

Who Was Marie Curie?

Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person — man or woman — to win the award twice. With her husband Pierre Curie, Marie’s efforts led to the discovery of polonium and radium and, after Pierre’s death, the further development of X-rays. The famed scientist died in 1934 of aplastic anemia likely caused by exposure to radiation.

Early Life and Education

Maria Sklodowska, later known as Marie Curie, was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw (modern-day Poland). Curie was the youngest of five children, following siblings Zosia, Józef, Bronya and Hela.

Both of Curie’s parents were teachers. Her father, Wladyslaw, was a math and physics instructor. When she was only 10, Curie lost her mother, Bronislawa, to tuberculosis.

As a child, Curie took after her father. She had a bright and curious mind and excelled at school. But despite being a top student in her secondary school, Curie could not attend the male-only University of Warsaw. She instead continued her education in Warsaw’s «floating university,» a set of underground, informal classes held in secret.

Both Curie and her sister Bronya dreamed of going abroad to earn an official degree, but they lacked the financial resources to pay for more schooling. Undeterred, Curie worked out a deal with her sister: She would work to support Bronya while she was in school, and Bronya would return the favor after she completed her studies.

For roughly five years, Curie worked as a tutor and a governess. She used her spare time to study, reading about physics, chemistry and math.

In 1891, Curie finally made her way to Paris and enrolled at the Sorbonne. She threw herself into her studies, but this dedication had a personal cost: with little money, Curie survived on buttered bread and tea, and her health sometimes suffered because of her poor diet.

Curie completed her master’s degree in physics in 1893 and earned another degree in mathematics the following year.

Marriage to Pierre Curie

Marie married French physicist Pierre Curie on July 26, 1895. They were introduced by a colleague of Marie’s after she graduated from Sorbonne University; Marie had received a commission to perform a study on different types of steel and their magnetic properties and needed a lab for her work.

A romance developed between the brilliant pair, and they became a scientific dynamic duo who were completely devoted to one another. At first, Marie and Pierre worked on separate projects. But after Marie discovered radioactivity, Pierre put aside his own work to help her with her research.

Marie suffered a tremendous loss in 1906 when Pierre was killed in Paris after accidentally stepping in front of a horse-drawn wagon. Despite her tremendous grief, she took over his teaching post at the Sorbonne, becoming the institution’s first female professor.

In 1911, Curie’s relationship with her husband’s former student, Paul Langevin, became public. Curie was derided in the press for breaking up Langevin’s marriage, the negativity in part stemming from rising xenophobia in France.

Children

In 1897, Marie and Pierre welcomed a daughter, Irène. The couple had a second daughter, Ève, in 1904.

Irène Joliot-Curie followed in her mother’s footsteps, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Joliot-Curie shared the honor with her husband, Frédéric Joliot, for their work on the synthesis of new radioactive elements.

In 1937, Ève Curie wrote the first of many biographies devoted to her famous mother, Madame Curie, which became a feature film a few years later.

Discoveries

Curie discovered radioactivity, and, together with her husband Pierre, the radioactive elements polonium and radium while working with the mineral pitchblende. She also championed the development of X-rays after Pierre’s death.

Radioactivity, Polonium and Radium

Fascinated with the work of Henri Becquerel, a French physicist who discovered that uranium casts off rays weaker than the X-rays found by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Curie took his work a few steps further.

Curie conducted her own experiments on uranium rays and discovered that they remained constant, no matter the condition or form of the uranium. The rays, she theorized, came from the element’s atomic structure. This revolutionary idea created the field of atomic physics. Curie herself coined the word «radioactivity» to describe the phenomena.

Following Curie’s discovery of radioactivity, she continued her research with her husband Pierre. Working with the mineral pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in 1898. They named the element polonium, after Curie’s native country of Poland.

They also detected the presence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende and called that radium. In 1902, the Curies announced that they had produced a decigram of pure radium, demonstrating its existence as a unique chemical element.

Development of X-rays

When World War I broke out in 1914, Curie devoted her time and resources to help the cause. She championed the use of portable X-ray machines in the field, and these medical vehicles earned the nickname «Little Curies.»

After the war, Curie used her celebrity to advance her research. She traveled to the United States twice — in 1921 and in 1929 — to raise funds to buy radium and to establish a radium research institute in Warsaw.

Nobel Prizes

Curie won two Nobel Prizes, for physics in 1903 and for chemistry in 1911. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize as well as the first person—man or woman—to win the prestigious award twice. She remains the only person to be honored for accomplishments in two separate sciences.

Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, along with her husband and Henri Becquerel, for their work on radioactivity. With their win, the Curies developed an international reputation for their scientific efforts, and they used their prize money to continue their research.

In 1911, Curie won her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her discovery of radium and polonium. While she received the prize alone, she shared the honor jointly with her late husband in her acceptance lecture.

Around this time, Curie joined with other famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Max Planck, to attend the first Solvay Congress in Physics and discuss the many groundbreaking discoveries in their field.

How Did Marie Curie Die?

Curie died on July 4, 1934, of aplastic anemia, believed to be caused by prolonged exposure to radiation.

She was known to carry test tubes of radium around in the pocket of her lab coat. Her many years working with radioactive materials took a toll on her health.

Legacy

Curie made many breakthroughs in her lifetime. Remembered as a leading figure in science and a role model for women, she has received numerous posthumous honors. Several educational and research institutions and medical centers bear the Curie name, including the Curie Institute and Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC).

In 1995, Marie and Pierre’s remains were interred in the Panthéon in Paris, the final resting place of France’s greatest minds. Marie became the first and one of only five women to be laid to rest there. In 2017, the Panthéon hosted an exhibition to honor the 150th birthday of the pioneering scientist.

The story of the Nobel laureate was back on the big screen in 2017 with Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge, featuring Polish actress Karolina Gruszka. In 2018, Amazon announced the development of another biopic of Curie, with British actress Rosamund Pike in the starring role.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Marie Curie
• Birth Year: 1867
• Birth date: November 7, 1867
• Birth City: Warsaw
• Birth Country: Poland
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice. Her efforts with her husband Pierre led to the discovery of polonium and radium, and she championed the development of X-rays.
• Industries
• Science and Medicine
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Schools
• Sorbonne
• Nacionalities
• French
• Polish
• Interesting Facts
• In 1903 Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
• In 1911 Curie became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.
• Curie’s daughter Iréne followed in her mother’s footsteps, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935.
• Death Year: 1934
• Death date: July 4, 1934
• Death City: Passy
• Death Country: France

Fact Check

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Marie Curie Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/scientists/marie-curie
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: October 8, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014

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QUOTES

• I believe that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician; he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.
• One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
• In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.
• All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child.
• In the education of children the requirement of their growth and physical evolution should be respected, and that some time should be left for their artistic culture.
• Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
• I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.
• Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
• You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.
• It is important to make a dream of life and a dream reality.
• There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.

https://images.ctfassets.net/

Путь в науку

Мария Кюри — ученый с мировым именем, открывшая радий и полоний, описавшая явление радиоактивности, дважды удостоенная Нобелевской премии.

Мария Соломея Склодовская родилась 7 ноября 1867 года в Варшаве (Российская империя) в благородной польской семье пятым последним ребенком. Ее отец Владислав Склодовский был учителем физики. Мать Бронислава тоже служила учительницей. Детям прививали любовь к учебе и тягу к знаниям. Маленькая Маня (как называли ее близкие) в 4 года уже умела читать и очень рана проявила интерес к науке. К сожалению, девочка лишилась матери, когда ей было всего 11 лет. Отцу стало тяжело справляться с большой семьей. Денег всегда не хватало, поэтому детство Марии прошло в бедности, что, впрочем, не помешало ей сохранить тягу к знаниям и с отличием окончить гимназию.

В то время путь в науку для женщин был закрыт. Варшавский университет, где она мечтала продолжить образование, не принимал женщин. Мария пыталась найти выход из положения и начала учиться в «Летучем университете» — высшем учебном заведении, которое не имело официального статуса и обучало своих студентов нелегально. Марии все же хотелось получить легальное высшее образование. Ее заветной мечтой было обучение в Парижском университете, но во французской столице она оказалась только в 24 года. До этого ей пришлось работать гувернанткой, чтобы помочь старшей сестре, которая первой уехала в Париж учиться медицине.

Сестра, получив образование и став врачом, смогла вызвать к себе Марию. Девушка поступила в Сорбонну, где в полной мере проявились ее блестящие способности и раскрылся талант ученого.

Окончив Сорбонну, она получила два диплома:

• По физике;
• По математике.

После окончания университета Мария занялась изучение магнитных свойств и химического состава стали. Благодаря этому проекту она познакомилась с молодым ученым Пьером Кюри, который вскоре стал ее мужем.

Открытия Марии Кюри

Выйдя замуж, Мария продолжила свои научные изыскания. Ее заинтересовали открытия двух ученых — Вильгельма Рентгена и Анри Беккереля. Вильям Рентген открыл рентгеновские лучи, а Анри Беккерель установил, что уран испускает излучение и назвал это явление «лучами Беккереля». Мария Кюри продолжила исследования в этой области даже несмотря на то, что у нее появилось двое детей.

В апреле 1898 года она обнаружила, что лучи Беккереля испускает не только уран, но и торий. Это открытие стало настоящим прорывом в науке. Мария установила, что способность материалов испускать лучи возникает внутри атома и назвала это явление «радиоактивностью». К тому времени английский физик Дж. Дж. Томсон уже обнаружил, что атомы — это не самые маленькие частицы, как было принято считать раньше и, что они содержат еще более мелкие частицы — электроны. Однако только Мария Кюри поняла, как применить огромную силу атомов.

Совместно с мужем Пьером Мария продолжала работать над экспериментами, пытаясь обнаружить неизвестные элементы. Интенсивные научные изыскания привели к успеху. Используя минерал настуран, содержащий множество типов материалов, Кюри обнаружили два химических компонента, которые обладали радиоактивностью. В июле 1898 года они назвали один из них — «полоний» в честь Родины Марии — Польши, а в декабре того же года выделили «чистый» радий (от латинского radius — «лучи»).

Нобелевские премии

Открытие радия родило в обществе небывалый ажиотаж. В нем увидели панацею от всех болезней. Микроскопические частицы радия добавляли в шоколад, крем для рук, предметы бытовой химии. В 1903 году Пьер и Мария Кюри совместно с Анри Беккерелем получили Нобелевскую премию по физике за вклад в анализ «радиационных явлений». Мария получила премию только благодаря заступничеству своего мужа, так как первоначально Нобелевский комитет не хотел включать ее в список лауреатов только из-за того, что она была женщиной.

После трагической гибели мужа в 1906 году (он был сбит конным экипажем), несмотря на горе и чувство опустошенности, Мария Кюри нашла в себе силы продолжить дело своей жизни — научную работу. Кроме того, она начала преподавательскую деятельность в качестве профессора общей физики в Сорбонне, заменив в этой должности своего супруга.

В 1910 году вместе с Андре-Луи Дебьерном Мария Кюри смогла получить чистый металлический радий, а не в составе соединений, как раньше. Открытие радиоактивности стало шагом на пути к исследованиям атомной энергии.

В 1911 году Мария Кюри получила вторую Нобелевскую премию «за выдающиеся заслуги в развитии химии: открытие элементов радия и полония, выделение радия и изучение природы и соединений этого замечательного элемента». Таким образом Мария Кюри стала единственным человеком, награжденным Нобелевской премией в двух разных областях.

За свою жизнь Мария Кюри была удостоена многочисленных наград и титулов. Ее работы с радиоактивными элементами послужили толчком ко многим другим научным открытиям. Работа с радиоактивными веществами, супруги Кюри понимали, что излучение этих веществ имеет воздействие на человека и предполагали, что открытое ими излучение в будущем можно будет применять в медицине при лечении опухолей. К сожалению, они не могли в полной мере оценить опасность, исходящую от радиоактивного излучения.

Мария Кюри заплатила за свои научные открытия слишком дорогую цену: 7 июня 1934 года в возрасте 66-и лет она скончалась от апластической анемии, вызванной хронической лучевой болезнью. Мария Кюри навсегда останется в истории науки как пример целеустремленного честного ученого, всецело преданного своему делу.

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СКЛОДОВСКАЯ-КЮРИ Мария (Curie Sklodowska Marie) (7.11.1867 – 4.07.1934) — польский и французский физик и химик, один из основоположников учения о радиоактивности. Р. в Варшаве. В 1891 — 94 училась в Парижском ун-те и, окончив его, получила два диплома лиценциата—по физике (1893) и математике (1894). В 1895 вышла замуж за французского физика П. Кюри и с этого же года начала работать в его лаборатории в Школе физики и химии (Париж). В 1900 — 06 — преподаватель физики в Севрской нормальной школе. В 1903 защитила в Парижском ун-те докторскую диссертацию. С 1906 — профессор и заведующая кафедрой Парижского ун-та, с 1914 — также директор Ин-та радия.
Работы посвящены радиоактивности и ее применению.
В 1897 начала исследование радиоактивного излучения солей урана и пришла к выводу, что оно является свойством самих атомов урана.
В 1898 независимо от Г. Шмидта доказала наличие радиоактивности у тория. Также заметила, что радиоактивность у некоторых минералов, содержащих уран и торий, намного интенсивнее, чем можно было бы ожидать. Предположила, что эти минералы (урановая смоляная руда, хальколиг и аутонит) содержат новый радиоактивный элемент, отличный от урана и тория. Поиски этого гипотетического радиоактивного элемента были проведены в урановой смолке совместно с П. Кюри. Используя разработанный ими метод обогащения активным веществом, они приходят к выводу, что в урановой смолке присутствуют два новых радиоактивных элемента. В результате совместной напряженной и кропотливой работы по переработке больших количеств урановой смолки с целью концентрации активного вещества, они в июле 1898 открывают один из этих элементов — полоний, в декабре второй — радий, в 1899 — наведенную радиоактивность. В 1899 высказала гипотезу о сущности радиоактивности и ввела термин «радиоактивность».

В 1900 показала, что α-лучи являются потоком материальных частиц. Разработала основы количественных методов радиоактивных измерений.
Совм. с Г. Камерлинг-Оннесом установила независимость радиоактивного распада от температуры.
Определила постоянные распада ряда элементов и и изучила свойства изотопов.
В 1902 получила несколько дециграммов чистой соли радия, а в 1910 вместе с французским химиком А. Дебьерном — металлический радий. Они же изготовили первый эталон радия (1911). Определила атомную массу радия и его место в периодической таблице химических элементов.
В 1903 за исследование явления радиоактивности супруги Кюри (совместно с А. Беккерелем) удостоены Нобелевской премии по физике, а в 1911 М. Склодовской-Кюри за получение радия в металлическом состоянии присуждена Нобелевская премия по химии.
Испытала много элементов на радиоактивность, исследовала, их свойства, разработала основы количественных методов радиоактивных измерений, изучала наведенную радиоактивность, установила влияние радиоактивного излучения на живую клетку, первая использовала радиоактивность (эманация радия) в медицине и т.д. В годы первой мировой войны (1914 — 18) организовала 220 передвижных и стационарных рентгеновских установок для рентгено- и радиологического обслуживания госпиталей Франции.
Умерла от лейкемии.

Член многих академий наук и научных об-в, в частности иностранный член АН СССР (1926) Медали Г. Дэви (1903), Э. Грессона (1909).

Литература:

1. Пьер и Мария Кюри. (1. М.Кюри. Пьер Кюри. 2. Ева Кюри. М.Кюри). – ЖЗЛ. 1959
2. Мария Кюри. Серия «100 человек, которые изменили ход истории».
3. Самый сокровенный секрет материи. Мария Кюри. Радиоактивность и элементы. / Серия Наука. Величайшие теории: выпуск 10. Пер. с испанского. — М.: Де Агостини, 2015

Фильмы: Скачать

1. Сила знания. Мария Кюри в Париже.