Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist who discovered the elements polonium and radium and won 2 Nobel Prizes at a time when women were often not allowed to attend university. Not only was she the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, but she is also still the only woman to win an award in two different scientific fields.

Early life

Born in Warsaw, Poland on November 7, 1867, Marie Sklodowska Curie was the youngest of five children of parents Wladislaw Skłodowska and Bronislava Skłodowska. Her father, Wladislaw, was a secondary school teacher who taught mathematics and physics, and he gave young Marie a basic education and some scientific training. However, her father lost all his savings and, subsequently, his job. Her sister died of typhus in 1876 and her mother died of tuberculosis. At the age of 16, Curie won a gold medal on the completion of her secondary school, but after that, she had to take work as a teacher to provide for her family.

At the same time as teaching, she took part in a student revolutionary organization because girls could not attend university in the Russian-dominant part of Poland. In this organization, there were young men and women who met in secret sessions to share knowledge and keep learning.

In 1886, Curie accepted a job as a governess, which was really more like a private educator, with a family living in Szczuki, Poland. Then, in 1891, Curie moved to Paris to live with her sister, Bronya, where Bronya was studying medicine. In the fall of 1891, Curie enrolled as a student of physics. In 1894 Curie needed a laboratory to work in for her research on the measurement of magnetic properties of various steel alloys. She visited Pierre Curie at the School of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Paris while looking for a laboratory and soon the two scientists became friends and then more. In 1895 Pierre and Marie married, beginning their extraordinary life in science.

Accomplishments

In 1897 Curie was able to achieve two university degrees, a scholarship, and a monograph on the magnetization of tempered steel. The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896 caused the Curies to become interested and alter their scientific research attention. The Curies were searching for other sources of radioactivity, pinch blade was a mineral that caught their eye. They started to experiment on this radioactive mineral which led the Curies to write two papers that were recognized by the Academy of Sciences. During their research, they were able to isolate the new element, polonium, which was named after the country of Marie’s birth, and they discovered another element, radium. In November 1903, the Royal Society of London gave the Curies the Davy Medal. A month later they received the Nobel Prize for Physics from the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. After a few months, Curie was appointed director of research at the University of Paris. Unfortunately, a few years later on April 19, 1906, Pierre was run down by a carriage at full speed and killed instantly. Marie, now a widow, was asked by the science community to continue her and her husband’s work and she did so. In 1910, s

he published her research on radioactivity which won her a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry. During World War I, Curie devoted her life to her own laboratory, named the Radium Institute, which helped the sick during the war. She helped make automobiles and x-rays. In 1921 she wrote a book on the use of radium during the war. Countless women for years have looked to Marie Curie for inspiration in their own scientific careers. William B. Meloney, editor of a leading magazine in New York, told Curie that a nationwide subscription in America was able to buy her a gram of radium for her research. President Warren G. Harding presented the golden key to the box containing the radium.

Importance

Marie Curie assisted in many women becoming interested in the field of science. She and her husband’s discovery of the elements have helped scientists develop and grow strong over the years. She was the ideal inspiration for women, Curie accomplished so much with so little. Even though as a woman she was denied from attending university in her own country, that didn’t stop her from accomplishing her dream of becoming a physicist. Being the first woman to win not one, but two Nobel Prizes, she is the perfect model for women in science.

Death

Marie Curie’s death was tragic, however, and resulted from her intense research of radioactive materials. On July 4, 1934, in Passy, France, she died from aplastic anemia, and radiation poisoning in her lungs, a true scientist who gave her life to further knowledge for the world.

Sources:

Marie Curie Biography. Encyclopedia of World Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://www.notablebiographies.com/Co-Da/Curie-Marie.html

The nobel prize in physics 1903. NobelPrize.org. (n.d.). Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/marie-curie/biographical/

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Marie Curie. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Curie

Photos:

https://kenyonlyceum.wordpress.com/2019/12/14/the-half-life-of-marie-curie/

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