Marie
Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie was born
in Warsaw, in the Russian-owned
part of Poland, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of
well-known teachers Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski. Maria's older
siblings were Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865) and Helena (1866). Maria's paternal grandfather Józef Skłodowski had been a
respected teacher in the Polish town of Lublin. Her father Władysław Skłodowski taught
mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also
director of two Warsaw gymnasia for boys. Maria's
mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls. She
died from tuberculosis when Maria was
twelve. Two years before the death of her mother, Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia,
had died of typhus.
When
she was ten years old, Maria began attending a boarding school; next Maria
attended a gymnasium for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a
gold medal. She spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of
her father, and the next with her father in Warsaw, where she did
some tutoring. Unable to enroll in a higher
education institution due to being a female,
she and her sister Bronisława became involved with the Flying
University, a secret teaching institution, teaching a
patriotic Polish curriculum, which was against Russia. It was also willing to admit female students. Because Maria could not afford the
tuition to go to university in Paris just yet, she worked as a governess and
continued tutoring herself. From 1890 to 1891 she began her practical
scientific training in a chemical laboratory at the Museum of Industry and
Agriculture. The laboratory was run by her cousin, Jozef Boguski. In late 1891 she left Poland for France. In Paris, Maria (or Marie,
as she would be known in France) briefly found a home with her sister and
brother-in-law before renting an attic room closer to the university, in
the Latin Quarter, and proceeding with
her studies of physics, chemistry and mathematics at the Sorbonne (the University of Paris), where she enrolled in late
1891. In 1893 she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an
industrial laboratory of Professor Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile she
continued studying at the Sorbonne, and with the aid of a fellowship she was
able to earn a second degree in 1894.
Marie 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. That
same year Pierre Curie entered her
life; it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together.
Pierre was an instructor at the School of Physics and Chemistry in Paris. Their
mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to
develop feelings for one another. At Marie's insistence, Pierre had
written up his research on magnetism and received his own doctorate in March 1895; he was also
promoted to professor at the school. On 26 July of that year, they married in
a civil union (a
wedding not in a church but by the government).
Shortly
after, Marie decided to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research
for a thesis for a PhD. She used a new technique to investigate samples.
Fifteen years earlier, her husband and his brother had developed a version of
the electrometer, something used for
measuring electrical currents. Using Pierre's electrometer, she discovered that
uranium rays caused the air around the rays to conduct electricity. She
had hypothesized that the
radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules, but must come from the atom itself. This later helped to show that atoms can be divided.
In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support the family, Marie began teaching at
a university in Paris called the École Normale Supérieure. The Curies did not have their own laboratory; most of their
research was carried in a converted shed next to the School of Physics and
Chemistry. Marie's studies had included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite). She began a search for additional
substances that emit radiation and by 1898, she discovered that the
element thorium was also
radioactive. However, she did not receive credit for this discovery.
She
was aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries in order to be
the first recognized as the discoverer. In July 1898, Marie
and her husband published a paper together, announcing the existence of an
element, which they named "polonium", in honor of her country, Poland. On 26 December 1898,
the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named "radium" for its intense radioactivity – a word that they coined (or created).
In 1900, Marie became the first woman faculty
member at the École
Normale Supérieure, and Pierre joined the Sorbonne's faculty. In
June 1903, Marie was awarded her doctorate from the University
of Paris. That
month, she and Pierre were invited to the Royal Institution in London to
give a speech on radioactivity; being female, she was not allowed to speak, and
Pierre alone was allowed to.
In December 1903, the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie and Henri
Becquerel the Nobel
Prize in Physics. At first, the Committee intended to honor
only Pierre and Henri, but one of the committee members and an advocate of
woman scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus
Goesta Mittag-Leffler, told Pierre, and after his complaint, Marie's
name was added to the nomination. Marie was the first woman to be awarded
a Nobel Prize.
In December 1904, Marie gave birth
to their second daughter, Ève Curie. On 19 April 1906,
Pierre 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; his skull was
fractured. Marie was devastated by the death of her husband. On 13 May 1906,the
Sorbonne physics department decided to offer Pierre’s position to Marie, who
accepted. She became the first woman to be a professor at the Sorbonne.
In 1910, Marie succeeded in finding
radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive emissions
that was eventually named after her and Pierre: the curie. In 1911, the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded her a second Nobel Prize, this
time for
Chemistry. 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." Marie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes.
During World War I, Marie saw a need
for field radiological centers near the front lines to assist battlefield
surgeons. She became the Director of the Red Cross Radiology
Service and set up France's first military radiology center, operational by
late 1914. In 1915, Marie produced hollow needles containing 'radium
emanation', a colorless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified
as radon to be used for
sterilizing infected tissue (skin, muscle, or other parts of the body). It is
estimated that over one million wounded soldiers were treated with her x-ray
units.
On 4 July 1934, Marie died at
the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia. Many people believe she got aplastic anemia
from being exposed for a long time to radiation. The damaging effects of
ionizing radiation were not known at the time of her work. She was buried at
the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her
husband Pierre. Sixty years later, in 1995, in honour of their achievements,
the remains of both were transferred to the Panthéon, Paris, a building where some of the most famous French
people are buried. She became the first—and so far the only—woman
to be honored with burial in the Panthéon because of her own work.
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