Marie CurieFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Marie Curie (disambiguation).

Marie Curie

Marie Curie, ca. 1920

Born Maria Salomea Skłodowska

7 November 1867

Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland, then part of Russian

Empire [1]

Died 4 July 1934 (aged 66)

Passy, Haute-Savoie, France

Residence Poland, France

Citizenship Poland (by birth)

France (by marriage)

Fields Physics, chemistry

Institutions University of Paris

Alma mater University of Paris

ESPCI

Doctoral advisor Henri Becquerel

Doctoral

studentsAndré-Louis Debierne

Óscar Moreno

Marguerite Catherine Perey

Known for Radioactivity, polonium, radium

Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics (1903)

Davy Medal (1903)

Matteucci Medal (1904)

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)

Spouse Pierre Curie (1859–1906)

Signature

Notes

She is the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.

She was the mother of Irène Joliot-Curie andÈve Curie.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie, often referred to as Marie Curie, (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a

Polish physicist and chemist, working mainly in France, who is famous for her pioneering research

on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only

person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first female professor at the University of Paris (La

Sorbonne), and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in Paris' Panthéon.

She was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska (pronounced [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska]) in Warsaw, in what was

then the Kingdom of Poland. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Floating University and began her practical

scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where

she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared her 1903 Nobel

Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She was the sole winner of

the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined), techniques for isolating

radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium andradium. Under her direction, the world's

first studies were conducted into the treatment ofneoplasms, using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie

Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I,

she established the first military field radiological centres.

While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska-Curie (she used both surnames) never lost her sense of Polish

identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the

first chemical element that she discovered – polonium, which she first isolated in 1898 – after her native

country.[a]

Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia brought on by her years of exposure to radiation.

Contents

  [hide]

1  Biography

o 1.1  Early years

o 1.2  New life in Paris

o 1.3  New elements

o 1.4  Nobel Prizes

o 1.5  World War I

o 1.6  Postwar years

o 1.7  Death

2  Legacy

3  Awards, honours and tributes

4  Notes

5  References

6  Further reading

o 6.1  Nonfiction

o 6.2  Fiction

7  See also

8  External links

Biography

Early years

Birthplace on ulica Freta in Warsaw's "New Town" – now home to the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and

youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski.[2]Maria's older siblings were

Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865) and Helena (1866).[3]

Władysław Skłodowski with daughters (from left) Maria, Bronisława, Helena, 1890

On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic

involvements in Polish national uprisings aiming at the restoration of Poland's independence (most recent of

which was the January Uprising of 1863–1864).[4] This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria,

her elder sisters and her brother, to a difficult struggle to get ahead in life.[4]

Maria's paternal grandfather Józef Skłodowski had been a respected teacher in Lublin, where he taught the

young Bolesław Prus,[5] who would become one of the leading figures in the history of Polish literature.[6] Her

father Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was

also director of two Warsaw gymnasia for boys.[3] After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction

from the Polish schools, he brought much of the lab equipment home, and instructed his children in its use.

[3] He was eventually fired by the 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 the income

by lodging boys in their house.[3] Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for

girls; she resigned from the position after Maria was born.[3] She died from tuberculosis when Maria was twelve.

[3] Maria's father was an atheist; her mother—a devout Catholic.[7] Two years before the death of her mother,

Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus.[3] The deaths of her mother and sister caused Maria to give up

Catholicism and become agnostic.[8]

When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska; next Maria attended

a gymnasium for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal.[2] After a collapse,

possibly due to depression,[3] 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.[2]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 clandestine

teaching institution, teaching a pro-Polish curriculum in defiance of the Russian authorities, and also willing to

admit female students.[2][3]

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.[2][9] In connection with

this, Maria took a position as governess: 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.[2][9] While working for the latter

family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, a future eminent mathematician.[9] His parents

rejected the idea of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them.[9]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.[4] Still, as an old

man and a mathematics professor at theWarsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively before the statue of

Maria Skłodowska which had been erected in 1935 before theRadium Institute that she had founded in 1932.[4]

[10]

At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława, a few months after she married Kazimierz Dłuski, a physician and social

and political activist, invited Maria to join them in Paris.[2] 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.[2] She was helped by

her father, who was able to secure a more lucrative position again.[9]All that time she continued to educate

herself, reading books, exchanging letters, and being tutored herself.[9] In early 1889 she returned home to her

father in Warsaw.[2] She continued working as a governess, and remained there till late 1891.[9] 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.[2][3][9] The

laboratory was run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been an assistant in Saint Petersburg to the Russian

chemist Dmitri Mendeleev.[2][9][11]

New life in Paris

At a Warsaw lab, in 1890–91, Maria Skłodowska did her first scientific work.

In late 1891 she left Poland for France.[12] 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 Sorbonne (the

University of Paris), where she enrolled in late 1891.[13][14] She subsisted on her meager resources, suffering

from cold winters and occasionally fainting from hunger.[14]

Marie 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 Professor Gabriel Lippmann.[2] Meanwhile she

continued studying at the Sorbonne, and with the aid of a fellowship she was able to earn a second degree in

1894.[2][14][b]

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 (Société d'encouragement pour

l'industrie nationale).[14] That same year Pierre Curie entered her life; it was their mutual interest in natural

sciences that drew them together.[15] Pierre was an instructor at the School of Physics and Chemistry, the École

supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris (ESPCI).[2] They were introduced by

Professor Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned that Marie was looking for a larger laboratory space,

something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre had access to.[2][14] Though Pierre did not have a large

laboratory, he was able to find some space for Marie where she was able to begin work.[14]

Their mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for one

another.[2][14] Eventually Pierre proposed marriage, but at first Marie did not accept as she was still planning to

go back to her native country.[2] Pierre, however, declared that he was ready to move with her to Poland, even if

meant being reduced to teaching French.[2] Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Marie returned to Warsaw,

where she visited her family.[14] She was still laboring 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 she was a woman.[4] A letter

from Pierre convinced her to return to Paris to pursue a PhD.[14] At Marie's insistence, Pierre had written up his

research onmagnetism and received his own doctorate in March 1895; he was also promoted to professor at

the School.[14] A contemporary quip would call Marie, "Pierre's biggest discovery."[4] On 26 July that year, they

married in a civil union; neither wanted a religious service.[2][14] Marie's dark blue outfit, worn instead of a bridal

grown, would serve her for many years as a lab outfit.[14] They shared two pastimes: long bicycle trips, and

journeys abroad, which brought them even closer.[4] In Pierre, Marie had found a new love, a partner, and a

scientific collaborator on whom she could depend.[4]

New elements

Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory

In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the existence of X-rays, though the mechanism behind their production

was not yet understood.[16] In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that

resembled X-rays in their penetrating power.[16] He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence,

did not depend on an external source of energy, but seemed to arise spontaneously from uranium itself.[2] Marie

decided to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research for a thesis.[2] 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 electrical currents.[16] Using Pierre's electrometer, she

discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity.[16] Using this technique, her

first result was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uranium

present.[16] She had hypothesized that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules, but

must come from the atom itself.[16] This hypothesis was an important step in disproving the ancient assumption

that atoms were indivisible.[16][17]

In 1897, her daughter Irène was born.[12] To support the family, Marie begun teaching at the École Normale

Supérieure.[12] The Curies did not have a dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried in a

converted shed next to the School of Physics and Chemistry.[12] The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting

room, was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof.[18] As they were unaware of the deleterious effects

of radiation exposure attendant on their chronic unprotected work with radioactive substances, Marie and her

husband had no idea what price they would pay for the effect of their research upon their health.[4] The School

did not sponsor her research, but she would receive some subsidies from metallurgical and mining companies,

and various organizations and governments.[12][18][19]

Marie's systematic studies had included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as

chalcolite).[18] 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 some other substance that was far more

active than uranium.[18][20] She began a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation and by

1898, she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive.[16]

Pierre 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.[12][18]

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.[21]

Pierre, Irène, Marie Curie

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 have gone

to Silvanus Thompson instead. Marie 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.[22] Even so, just as Thompson had been beaten by Becquerel, so Marie 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 Schmidt had published his own finding in Berlin.[23]

At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Marie 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."[23] 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 tons of the ore.[23]

In July 1898, Marie and her husband published a paper together, announcing the existence of an element

which they named "polonium", in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain

partitioned among three empires that claimed it a century before.[2] 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.[2][12][16][24]

To prove their discoveries beyond any doubt, the Curies had undertaken to isolate polonium and radium into its

pure components.[18]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. 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.[25] The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium salt by

differential crystallization. From a ton of pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated in

1902. In 1910, Marie isolated pure radium metal.[18][26] She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has

a half-life of only 138 days.[18]

In 1900, Marie became the first woman faculty member at the École Normale Supérieure, and Pierre joined the

Sorbonne's faculty.[27][28] In 1902, she visited Poland on the occasion of her father's death.[12] In June 1903,

supervised by Henri Becquerel, Marie was awarded her doctorate from the University of Paris.[12][29] That month,

she and Pierre were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being female,

she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre alone was allowed to.[30]Meanwhile, a new industry began

developing based on radium.[27] The Curies did not patent their discovery and benefited little from this

increasingly profitable business.[18][27]

Nobel Prizes

1903

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."[12] At first, the

Committee intended to honour only Pierre and Henri, but one of the committee members and an advocate of

woman scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Goesta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to the situation, and

after his complaint, Marie's name was added to the nomination.[31] Marie was the first woman to be awarded a

Nobel Prize.[12]

Marie and her husband declined to go to Stockholm to receive the prize in person; they were too busy with their

work, and Pierre, who disliked public ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill.[30][31]As Nobel laureates were

required to deliver a lecture, the Curies finally undertook the trip in 1905.[31] The award money allowed the

Curies to hire their first lab assistant.[31] Following the award of the Nobel Prize, and galvanized by an offer from

the University of Geneva, which offered Pierre a position, the Sorbonne gave Pierre a professorship and the

chair of physics, although the Curies still did not have a proper laboratory.[12][27][28] Upon Pierre's complaint, the

Sorbonne relented and agreed to furbish a new laboratory, but it would not be ready until 1906.[31]

In December 1904, Marie gave birth to their second daughter, Ève Curie.[31] She later hired

Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland.[32]

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.[33][12] Marie was devastated by

the death of her husband.[34] On 13 May 1906, the Sorbonne physics department decided to retain the chair

that had been created for Pierre and offer it to Marie.[34] She accepted it, hoping to create a world class

laboratory as a tribute to Pierre.[34][35] She became the first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne.[12]

1911 Nobel Prize

Marie's quest to create a new laboratory did not end with Sorbonne. In her later years, Marie 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.[35] This initiative came in 1909 from Pierre Paul Émile Roux,

director of the Pasteur Institute, who became disappointed that the Sorbonne was not giving Marie a proper

laboratory and suggested that she move to the Institute.[12][36] Only then, with the threat of Marie leaving,

Sorbonne relented, and eventually the Curie Pavilion became a joint initiative of the Sorbonne and the Pasteur

Institute.[36]

In 1910, Marie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive

emissions that was eventually named after her and Pierre: the curie.[35]Nevertheless, in 1911 the French

Academy of Sciences did not elect her to be a member by one[12] or two votes[37] Elected instead was Édouard

Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the wireless telegraph.[38] A doctoral student of

Curie, Marguerite Perey, became the first woman elected to membership in the Academy – over half a century

later, in 1962. 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 Marie

was Jewish.[12][37] During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right wing press,

who criticised her for being a foreigner and an atheist.[37] Her daughter later remarked on the public hypocrisy;

as the French press often portrayed Marie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French

honour, but would portray her as a French hero when she received a foreign one, such as her Nobel Prizes.[12]

At First Solvay Conference (1911), Curie (seated, 2nd from right) confers with Henri Poincaré. Standing, 4th from right,

isRutherford; 2nd from right, Einstein; far right,Paul Langevin

In 1911, it was revealed that in 1910–11 Marie had conducted an affair of about a year's duration with

physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre's.[39] He was a married man who was estranged from his

wife.[37] This resulted in a press scandal that was exploited by her academic opponents. Marie was five years

older than Langevin and was portrayed in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker.[40] Curie was away for

a conference in Belgium when the scandal broke, upon her return, she found an angry mob in front of her

house, and had to seek a refuge with her daughters at a house of a friend.[37]Later, Curie's

granddaughter, Hélène Joliot, married Langevin's grandson, Michel Langevin.[41]

Despite that, international recognition for her work grew to new heights, and in 1911, theRoyal Swedish

Academy of Sciences awarded her a second Nobel Prize, this time for Chemistry.[4] 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."[41] Marie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who

have been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other person being Linus Pauling (for chemistry

and for peace). 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.[4] Marie's second Nobel

Prize enabled her to talk the French government into supporting the Radium Institute, which was built in 1914

and at which research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine.[36] A month after accepting her 1911

Nobel Prize, she was hospitalised with depression and a kidney ailment.[41] For most of 1912, she avoided

public life, and spent some time in England with her friend and fellow physicist, Hertha Ayrton.[41] She returned

to her lab only in December, after a break of about 14 months.[41]

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 a new street

named Rue Pierre-Curie.[36][41] She visited Poland in 1913, and was welcomed in Warsaw, but the visit was

mostly ignored by the Russian authorities.[36] 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.[36][41][42]

World War I

Curie in a mobile x-ray vehicle

During World War I, Marie saw a need for field radiological centres near the front lines to assist battlefield

surgeons.[42] 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").[42] She became the Director of the Red Cross Radiology Service and

set up France's first military radiology centre, operational by late 1914.[42] Assisted at first by a military doctor

and her 17-year old daughter Irene, she directed the installation of twenty mobile radiological vehicles and

another 200 radiological units at field hospitals in the first year of the war.[36][42] Later, she began training other

women as aides.[43]

In 1915, Marie 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.[43] Marie provided the radium, from

her own one-gram supply.[43] It is estimated that over one million wounded soldiers were treated with her x-ray

units.[8][36] Busy with this work, she carried out next to no scientific research during that period.[36] In spite of all

her efforts, Curie never received any formal recognition from the French government for her contribution during

wartime.[42]

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.[43] She did buy war bonds, using her Nobel Prize money.

[43] She was also active member in committees of Polonia in France dedicated to the Polish cause.[44] After the

war, she summarized her war time experiences in a bookRadiology in War (1919).[43]

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).[36] In 1921, Marie was welcomed triumphantly when she

toured the United States to raise funds for research on radium. Mrs. William Brown Meloney, after interviewing

Marie, created a Marie Curie Radium Fund and raised money to buy radium, publicising her trip.[36][45] In

1921, US President Warren G. Harding received her at the White House to present her with the 1 gram of

radium collected in the United States.[46][47] 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.[47][48] In 1922 she became a fellow of the French

Academy of Medicine.[36] She also travelled to other countries, appearing publicly and giving lectures in

Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and Czechoslovakia.[49]

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.[50] Eventually, it became one of 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.[50][51]

In August 1922, Marie Curie became a member of the newly created International Commission for Intellectual

Cooperation of theLeague of Nations.[52] In 1923, she wrote a biography of Pierre, entitled Pierre Curie.[53] In

1925, she visited Poland, to participate in the ceremony that laid foundations for the Radium Institute in

Warsaw.[36] Her second American tour, in 1929, succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute with

radium; it was opened in 1932 and her sister Bronisława became its director.[36][47]

These distractions from her scientific labours and the attendant publicity caused her much discomfort but

provided resources needed for her work.[47]

Death

1935 statue, facing the Radium Institute, Warsaw

Marie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934.[4][54] A few months later, on 4 July 1934, Marie died at

the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia believed to have been

contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation.[36][55] 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.[54] She

had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket[56] and stored them in her desk drawer,

remarking on the faint light that the substances gave off in the dark.[57] Marie was also exposed to X-rays from

unshielded equipment while serving as a radiologist in field hospitals during the war.[43]

She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre.[36] Sixty years later, in 1995, in

honour of their achievements, the remains of both were transferred to the Panthéon, Paris. She became the

first—and so far the only—woman to be honoured with interment in the Panthéon on her own merits.[52]

Because of their levels of radioactivity, her papers from the 1890s are considered too dangerous to handle.

[58] Even her cookbook is highly radioactive.[58] Her papers are kept in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to

consult them must wear protective clothing.[58]

In her last year she worked on a book, Radioactivity, which was published posthumously in 1935.[54]

Legacy

Statue, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland

The physical and societal aspects of the Curies' work contributed substantially to shaping the world of the

twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[59] Cornell University professor L. Pearce Williamsobserves:

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.[26]

If Marie 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 that

were placed in her way because she was a woman, in both her native and her adoptive country. This aspect of

her life and career is highlighted in Françoise Giroud's Marie Curie: A Life, which emphasizes Marie's role as a

feminist precursor.[4]

She was known for her honesty and moderate life style.[12][59] Having received a small scholarship in 1893, she

returned it in 1897 as soon as she began earning her keep.[2][19] She gave much of her first Nobel Prize money

to friends, family, students and research associates.[4] In an unusual decision, Marie intentionally refrained from

patenting the radium-isolation process, so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.[60] She

insisted that monetary gifts and awards were given to the scientific institutions she was affiliated with rather

than to herself.[59] She and her husband often refused awards and medals.[12] Albert Einstein reportedly

remarked that she was probably the only person not corrupted by fame.[4]

Awards, honours and tributes

Tomb of Pierre and Marie Curie,Panthéon, Paris

As one of the most famous female scientists to date, 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.[61]In a 2009 poll carried out

by New Scientist, Marie Curie was voted the "most inspirational woman in science". Curie received 25.1 per

cent of all votes cast, nearly twice as many as second-placeRosalind Franklin (14.2 per cent).[62][63]

Poland and France declared 2011 the Year of Marie Curie, and the United Nations declared that this would be

the International Year of Chemistry.[64] An artistic installation celebrating "Madame Curie" filled the Jacobs

Gallery at San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art.[65] On 7 November, Googlecelebrated her birthday with a

special Google Doodle.[66] On 10 December, the New York Academy of Sciences celebrated the centenary of

Marie Curie's second Nobel prize in the presence ofPrincess Madeleine of Sweden.[67]

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.[68] Awards that she received include:

Nobel Prize in Physics  (1903)[12]

Davy Medal  (1903, with Pierre)[49][69]

Matteucci Medal  (1904; with Pierre)[69]

Elliott Cresson Medal  (1909)[70]

Nobel Prize in Chemistry  (1911)[4]

Soviet postage stamp (1987)

Franklin Medal  of the American Philosophical Society (1921)[71]

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

[52] The curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in honour of her and Pierre (although the commission

which agreed on the name never clearly stated whether the standard was named after Pierre, Marie or both of

them).[72] The element with atomic number 96 was named curium.[73] Three radioactive minerals are also named

after the Curies: curite, sklodowskite, and cuprosklodowskite.[74] She received numerous honorary degrees from

universities across the world.[47] The Marie Curie Actions fellowship program of the European Union for young

scientists wishing to work in a foreign country is named after her. [75] In Poland, she had received honorary

doctorates from the Lwów Polytechnic(1912), Poznań University (1922), Kraków's Jagiellonian

University (1924), and the Warsaw Polytechnic (1926).[64]

Numerous locations around the world are named after her.[74] In 2007, a metro station in Paris was renamed to

honour both of the Curies.[74] Polish nuclear research reactor Maria is named after her.[76] The 7000

Curie asteroid is also named after her.[74] A KLM McDonnell Douglas MD-11  (registration PH-KCC) is named in

her honour.[77]

2011 birthplace mural, oncentenary of second Nobel Prize

Several institutions bear her name, starting with the two Curie institutes - the Maria Skłodowska–Curie Institute

of Oncology, in Warsaw and the Institut Curie in Paris. She is the patron of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska

University, in Lublin, founded in 1944, and Pierre and Marie Curie University, in Paris, established in 1971. In

Britain Marie Curie Cancer Care was set up in 1948 to care for the terminally ill. There are two museums

dedicated to Marie Curie: in 1967, a museum devoted to Curie was established in Warsaw's "New Town", at

her birthplace on ulica Freta (Freta Street);[4] her laboratory is preserved as the Musée Curie in Paris, open

since 1992.[78]

Several works of art bear her likeness, or are dedicated to her. Michalina Mościcka, wife of Polish

President Ignacy Mościcki, unveiled a 1935 statue of Marie Curie before Warsaw's Radium Institute.[4]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.[4] In

1955 Jozef Mazur created a stained glass panel of her, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Medallion, featured in

the University at Buffalo Polish Room.[79]

Books dedicated to her include Madame Curie (1938), written by her daughter, Ève.[64] In 1987Françoise

Giroud wrote a biography, Marie Curie: A Life.[64] In 2005, Barbara Goldsmith wroteObsessive Genius: The

Inner World of Marie Curie.[64] In 2011, another book appeared, Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of

Love and Fallout , by Lauren Redniss.[80]

Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon starred in the 1943 U.S. Oscar-nominated film, Madame Curie, based on

her life.[53] More recently, in 1997, a French film about Pierre and Marie Curie was released, Les Palmes de M.

Schutz. It was adapted from a play of the same name. In the film, Marie Curie was played by Isabelle Huppert.

[81]

Curie's likeness also has appeared on bills, stamps and coins around the world.[74] She was featured on the

Polish late-1980s 20,000-złoty banknote [82]  as well as on the last French 500-franc note, before the franc was

replaced by the euro.[83]

On the 2011 centenary of Marie Curie's second Nobel Prize (1911), an allegorical mural was painted on

the façade of her Warsaw birthplace. It depicts an infant Maria Skłodowska holding a test tube from which

emanate the elements that she would discover as an adult: polonium and radium.

Notes

a. ^ Poland had been partitioned in the 18th century among Russia, Prussia and Austria, and it was Marie

Skłodowska–Curie's hope that naming the element after her native country would bring world attention to its

lack of independence. Polonium may have been the first chemical element named to highlight a political

question.[84]

b. ^ Sources tend to vary with regards to the field of her second degree. Tadeusz Estreicher, in his 1938 entry

in the Polish Biographical Dictionary, writes that while many sources state she earned a degree in

mathematics, this is incorrect, and her second degree was in chemistry.[2]

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, Marie CurieThe Nobel Prize in Physics 1903

Henri BecquerelPierre CurieMarie Curie

Biography

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the

daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific

training from her father. She became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave

Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In

1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and

the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following

year they were married. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her

Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as

Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also

appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Her early researches, together with her husband, were often performed under difficult conditions, laboratory

arrangements were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood. The discovery of radioactivity

by Henri Becquerel in 1896 inspired the Curies in their brilliant researches and analyses which led to the isolation of

polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth, and radium. Mme. Curie developed methods for the separation of

radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities to allow for its characterization and the careful study of its

properties, therapeutic properties in particular.

Mme. Curie throughout her life actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and during World War I,

assisted by her daughter, Irene, she personally devoted herself to this remedial work. She retained her enthusiasm

for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in her native city - in 1929

President Hoover of the United States presented her with a gift of $ 50,000, donated by American friends of science,

to purchase radium for use in the laboratory in Warsaw.

Mme. Curie, quiet, dignified and unassuming, was held in high esteem and admiration by scientists throughout the

world. She was a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay from 1911 until her death and since 1922 she had been

a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. Her work is recorded in numerous

papers in scientific journals and she is the author of Recherches sur les Substances Radioactives (1904),L'Isotopie et

les Éléments Isotopes and the classic Traité' de Radioactivité (1910).

The importance of Mme. Curie's work is reflected in the numerous awards bestowed on her. She received many

honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships of learned societies throughout the world.

Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the

spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize. In 1911 she received a

secondNobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity. She also received, jointly with

her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 and, in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on

behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science.

For further details, cf. Biography of Pierre Curie. Mme. Curie died in Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4,

1934.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book seriesLes Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

 

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 1 photoQUICK FACTS

NAME: Marie Curie

OCCUPATION: Physicist

BIRTH DATE: November 07, 1867

DEATH DATE: July 04, 1934

EDUCATION: Sorbonnemore   about Marie

BEST KNOWN FORMarie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist famous for her work on radioactivity and twice a winner of the Nobel

Prize.

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SynopsisBorn Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie became the first woman to

win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win the award in two different fields (physics and chemistry). Curie's

efforts, with her husband, Pierre Curie, led to the discovery of polonium and radium and, after Pierre's death,

the development of X-rays. She died on July 4, 1934.

CONTENTS Synopsis

Early Life

Discoveries

Science Celebrity

Final Days and Legacy

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."

– Marie Curie

Early Life

Maria Sklodowska, better known as Marie Curie, was born in Warsaw in modern-day Poland on November 7,

1867. Her parents were borth teachers, and she was the youngest of five children. As a child Curie took after

her father, Ladislas, a math and physics instructor. She had a bright and curious mind and excelled at school.

But tragedy struck early, and when she was only 11, Curie lost her mother, Bronsitwa, to tuberculosis.

A top student in her secondary school, Curie could not attend the men-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 where she enrolled at the

Sorbonne in Paris. 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. Around this time, she received a commission to do a study on different types of steel and their

magnetic properties. Curie needed a lab to work in, and a colleague introduced her to French physicist Pierre

Curie. A romance developed between the brilliant pair, and they became a scientific dynamic duo.

DiscoveriesMarie and Pierre Curie were dedicated scientists and completely devoted to one another. At first, they worked

on separate projects. She was fascinated with the work of Henri Becquerel, a French physicist who discovered

that uranium casts off rays, weaker rays than the X-rays found by Wilhelm Roentgen.

Curie took Becquerel's work a few steps further, conducting her own experiments on uranium rays. She

discovered that the rays 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

and Curie herself coined the word radioactivity to describe the phenomena. Marie and Pierre had a daughter,

Irene, in 1897, but their work didn't slow down.

Pierre put aside his own work to help Marie with her exploration of radioactivity. Working with the mineral

pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in 1898. They named the element polonium, after

Marie'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.

CONTENTS Synopsis

Early Life

Discoveries

Science Celebrity

Final Days and Legacy

Science CelebrityMarie Curie made history in 1903 when she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in physics. She

won the prestigious honor along with her husband andHenri Becquerel, for their work on radioactivity. With

their Nobel Prize win, the Curies developed an international reputation for their scientific efforts, and they

used their prize money to continue their research. They welcomed a second child, daughter Eve, the following

year.

In 1906, Marie suffered a tremendous loss. Her husband Pierre was killed in Paris after he accidentally stepped

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.

Curie received another great honor in 1911, winning her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry. She was

selected for her discovery of radium and polonium, and became the first scientist to win two Nobel Prizes.

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. They gathered to discuss the many groundbreaking discoveries in

their field. Curie experienced the downside of fame in 1911, when her relationship with her husband's former

student, Paul Langevin, became public. Curie was derided in the press for breaking up Langevin's marriage.

The press' negativity towards Curie stemmed at least in part from rising xenophobia in France.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Curie devoted her time and resources to helping 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.

Final Days and Legacy

All of her years of working with radioactive materials took a toll on Curie's health. She was known to carry

test tubes of radium around in the pocket of her lab coat. In 1934, Curie went to the Sancellemoz Sanatorium

in Passy, France, to try to rest and regain her strength. She died there on July 4, 1934, of aplastic anemia,

which can be caused by prolonged exposure to radiation.

Marie Curie made many breakthroughs in her lifetime. She is the most famous female scientist of all time, and

has received numerous posthumous honors.

In 1995, her and her husband's remains were interred in the Panthéon in Paris, the final resting place of many

France's greatest minds. Curie became the first and only woman to be laid to rest there.

Curie also passed down her love of science to the next generation. Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie followed in

her mother's footsteps,

CONTENTS Synopsis

Early Life

Discoveries

Science Celebrity

Final Days and Legacy

winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Joliot-Curie shared the honor with her husband Frédéric Joliot

for their work on their synthesis of new radioactive elements.

Today several educational and research institutions and medical centers bear the Curie name, including the

Institute Curie and the Pierre and Marie Curie University, both in Paris.

 Nation and Family

Nation and Family

PRISONER IN CHAINS. That is what Poland seemed like to Maria Sklodowska. Manya, as she

was affectionately called, learned to be a Polish patriot from her parents, Bronislawa and Vladislav Sklodowski. At the time of Maria's birth in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, Poland had not been an independent country for most of a century. It had been divided up among Austria, Prussia, and czarist Russia.

Warsaw was in the part of Poland controlled by the czar, who hoped to stamp out Polish nationalism by keeping the people ignorant of their culture and language. But Polish patriots were determined to regain control of their nation. As educators, Maria's parents did their best to overcome restrictions placed on them by their Russian supervisors.

Czar Alexander II preferred to wear a military uniform. When the Czar was assassinated by revolutionary students in 1881, Manya and her best friend Kazia celebrated by dancing around the desks in their classroom.

READ   Curie's words

The birth of Manya, her fifth child, led her mother to resign her position as head of a school, where the family had resided until then. They moved to a boys' high school, where Vladislav taught math and physics and earned a good salary. Eventually, however, the Russian supervisor in charge of the school fired him for his pro-Polish sentiments.

“Constantly held in suspicion and spied upon, the children knew that a single conversation in Polish, or an imprudent word, might seriously harm, not only themselves, but also

MAP of Russian Poland

  The five Sklodowski children. From left to right: Zosia died of typhus; Hela became an educator; Maria, twice a Nobel laureate; and Józef and Bronya, physicians. “We all had much facility for intellectual work,” said Marie. (photo ACJC)

their families.”--Marie Curie

Marie was ten years old when her mother died in May 1878. As an adult Marie remembered it as “the first great sorrow of my life,” which “threw me into a profound depression.” (photo ACJC)

S HER FATHER WAS FORCED into a series of progressively lower academic

posts, the family's economic situation deteriorated. To help make ends meet they had to take in student boarders. Maria was only eight when her oldest sister caught typhus from a boarder and died. That death was followed less than three years later by the death of Madame Sklodowska, who lost a five-year battle with tuberculosis at the age of 42. The surviving family members--Professor Sklodowski; his son Joseph; and his daughters Bronya, Hela, and Maria--drew closer to one another.

Although Sklodowski would never forgive himself for losing the family savings in a bad investment, the children honored him for nurturing them emotionally and intellectually. On Saturday nights he read classics of literature to Maria and her siblings. He also exposed them to the scientific apparatus he had once used in teaching physics but now kept at home, since the Russian authorities had eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish curriculum.

“I easily learned mathematics and physics, as far as these sciences were taken in consideration in the school. I found in this ready help from my father, who loved science....Unhappily, he had no laboratory and could not perform experiments.”

Manya was the star pupil in her class. Her personal losses did not impede her academic success, but the pleasure of being awarded a gold medal at her high school graduation in 1883 was blunted because it meant shaking the hand of the grandmaster of education in Russian Poland. After graduating at 15, Manya suffered a collapse that doctors thought was due to fatigue or "nervous" problems -- today it might be diagnosed as depression.

At her father's urging Manya spent a year with cousins in the country. A merry round of dances and other festivities, it would be the only carefree year of her life.

Manya's secondary school diploma. She later recalled “always having held first rank in my class.” (photo ACJC)

 The Floating University

ARIA HOPED, LIKE HER SIBLINGS, to get an

advanced degree. Although Joseph was able to enroll in the medical school at the University of Warsaw, women were not welcome there. Maria and Bronya joined other friends in attending the Floating University. This illegal night school got its name from the fact that its classes met in changing locations, the better to evade the watchful eyes of the czarist authorities. Its students' lofty goal went beyond mere self-improvement. They hoped their grass-roots educational movement would raise the likelihood of eventual Polish liberation. 

This fly-by-night education could not match the curriculum at any of the major European universities that admitted women. Although Maria understood this fact, at the Floating University she did get a taste of progressive thought and an introduction to new developments in the sciences.

Cossacks parading in Warsaw after Russia crushed a nationalist rising in 1863.

“It was one of those groups of Polish youths who believed that the hope of their country lay in a great effort to develop the intellectual and moral strength of the nation....we agreed among ourselves to give evening courses, each one teaching what he knew best.”--Marie Curie

Years of Study

ANYA BECAME MARIE when she enrolled at the Sorbonne in fall

1891. At first she lived in the home of her sister. Bronya had married another Polish patriot, Casimir Dluski, whom she had met in medical school. The Dluskis' home, however, was an hour's commute by horse-drawn bus from the university, and Marie resented the lost time, not to mention the money wasted on carfare.

Paris in 1889 (two years before Marie Sklodowska's arrival), with the Eiffel Tower newly erected for a world's fair--a celebration of modern technology      [another view]

In addition, remaining with the Dluskis meant participating regularly in the active Polish exile community in Paris. Marie's father warned her that doing so might jeopardize her career prospects at home or even the lives of relatives there. Thus after a few months Marie moved to the Latin Quarter, the artists' and students' neighborhood close to the university.

Her living arrangements were basic. Stories from these years tell how she kept herself warm during the winter months by wearing every piece of clothing she owned, and how she fainted from hunger because she was too absorbed in study to eat. But even if Bronya had to come to her aid from time to time, living alone enabled Marie to focus seriously on her studies.

“...my situation was not exceptional; it was the familiar experience of many of the Polish students whom I knew....”

Paris rooftops, painting by Gustave Caillebotte[More]

READ   Curie's words

Another Polish student in Paris drew this portrait of Marie in 1892, after she had been enrolled at the Sorbonne for some months. Although at first she spent some time with other Polish students to help overcome homesickness, she soon had to devote all her time to her studies. (Photo ACJC)

The diligence paid off. Marie finished first in her master's degree physics course in the summer of 1893 and second in math the following year. Lack of money had stood in the way of her undertaking the math degree, but senior French scientists recognized her abilities and pulled some strings. She was awarded a scholarship earmarked for an outstanding Polish student. Before completing the math degree she was also commissioned by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry to do a study, relating magnetic properties of different steels to their chemical composition. She needed to find a lab where she could do the work.

 Love and Marriage

HE SEARCH FOR LAB SPACE led to a fateful introduction. In the spring of 1894,

Marie Sklodowska mentioned her need for a lab to a Polish physicist of her acquaintance. It occurred to him that his colleague Pierre Curie might be able to assist her. Curie, who had done pioneering research on magnetism, was laboratory chief at the Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in Paris. Unaware of how inadequate Pierre's own lab facilities were, the professor suggested that perhaps Pierre could find room there for Marie to work. The meeting between Curie and Sklodowska would change not only their individual lives but also the course of science.

“I noticed the grave and gentle expression of his face, as well as a certain abandon in his attitude, suggesting the dreamer absorbed in his reflections.”

Marie would eventually find rudimentary lab space at the Municipal School. Meanwhile her relationship with Curie was growing from mutual respect to love. Her senior by about a decade, Pierre had all but given up on love after the death of a close woman companion some 15 years earlier. The women he had met since had shown no interest in science, his life's passion. In Marie, however, he found an equal with a comparable devotion to science.

OLAND STILL BECKONED HER BACK.After her success in her math exam in

the summer of 1894, Marie returned there for a vacation, uncertain whether she would return to France. Pierre's heartfelt letters helped convince her to pursue her doctorate in Paris.

Marie hesitated before agreeing to marry Pierre Curie, because such a decision “meant abandoning my country and my family.” (Photo ACJC)

READ   Curie's words

Gabriel Lippmann, Marie Curie's thesis advisor, did early studies in a field in which Pierre Curie and his brother were pioneers: electrical effects in crystals. A pillar of the French tradition of patronage, Lippmann let Marie use his laboratory for her thesis work and helped her find other sources of support.

“Our work drew us closer and closer, until we were both convinced that neither of us could find a better life companion.”

Marie was determined not only to get her own doctorate but to see to it that Pierre received one as well. Although Pierre had done important scientific research in more than one field over the past 15 years, he had never completed a doctorate (in France the process consumed even more time than it did in the U.S. or U.K.). Marie insisted now that he write up his research on magnetism. In March 1895 he was awarded the degree. At the Municipal School Pierre was promoted to a professorship. The honor and the higher salary were offset by increased teaching duties without any improvement in lab space.

In a simple civil ceremony in July 1895, they became husband and wife. Neither wanted a religious service. Marie had lost her faith when her devout Roman Catholic mother died young, and Pierre was the son of non-practicing Protestants. Nor did they exchange rings. Instead of a bridal gown Marie wore a dark blue outfit, which for years after was a serviceable lab garment.

The Curies' honeymoon trip was a tour of France on bicycles purchased with a wedding gift. (Photo ACJC)                                               Another view

Next: Working Wife and Mother

Also:Pierre Curie

 X-rays and Uranium Rays

ARIE CURIE'S CHOICE of a thesis topic was influenced by two recent discoveries by

other scientists. In December 1895, about six months after the Curies married, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a kind of ray that could travel through solid wood or flesh and yield photographs of living people's bones. Roentgen dubbed these mysterious rays X-rays, with X standing for unknown. In recognition of his discovery, Roentgen in 1901 became the first Nobel laureate in physics.

One of Roentgen's first X-ray photographs -- a colleague's hand (note the wedding ring). The revelation of X-rays fascinated the public and deeply puzzled scientists

Henri Becquerel, discoverer of uranium radiation. Although he tried to help the Curies solve their financial problems and advance their careers, the relationship eventually soured--as sometimes happens with scientists touchy about sharing credit for discoveries.

In early 1896, only a few of months after Roentgen's discovery, French physicist Henri Becquerel reported to the French Academy of Sciences that uranium compounds, even if they were kept in the dark, emitted rays that would fog a photographic plate. He had come upon this discovery accidentally. Despite Becquerel's intriguing finding, the scientific community continued to focus its attention on Roentgen's X-rays, neglecting the much weaker Becquerel rays or uranium rays.

HE IGNORED URANIUM RAYS appealed to Marie Curie. Since she would not have a

long bibliography of published papers to read, she could begin experimental work on them immediately. The director of the Paris Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry, where Pierre was professor of physics, permitted her to use a crowded, damp storeroom there as a lab.

A clever technique was her key to success. About 15 years earlier, Pierre and his older brother, Jacques, had invented a new kind of electrometer, a device for measuring extremely low electrical currents. Marie now put the Curie electrometer to use in measuring the faint currents that can pass through air that has been bombarded with uranium rays. The moist air in the storeroom tended to dissipate the electric charge, but she managed to make reproducible measurements.

“Instead of making these bodies act upon photographic plates, I preferred to determine the intensity of their radiation by measuring the conductivity of the air exposed to the action of the rays.”

This device for precise electrical measurement, invented by Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques, was essential for Marie's work. (Photo ACJC)

You can exit this site to anexhibit on the discovery of the electron

With numerous experiments Marie confirmed Becquerel's observations that the electrical effects of uranium rays are constant, regardless of whether the uranium was solid or pulverized, pure or in a compound, wet or dry, or whether exposed to light or heat. Likewise, her study of the rays emitted by different uranium compounds validated Becquerel's conclusion that the minerals with a higher proportion of uranium emitted the most intense rays. She went beyond Becquerel's work, however, in forming a crucial hypothesis: the emission of rays by uranium compounds could be an atomic property of the element uranium--something built into the very structure of its atoms.

ARIE'S SIMPLE HYPOTHESIS would prove revolutionary. It would ultimately contribute to a fundamental shift in scientific

understanding. At the time scientists regarded the atom--a word meaning undivided or indivisible -- as the most elementary particle. A hint that this ancient idea was false came from the discovery of

the electron by other scientists around this same time. But nobody grasped the complex inner structure or the immense energy stored in atoms. Marie and Pierre Curie themselves were not convinced that radioactive energy came from within atoms--maybe, for example, the earth was bathed in cosmic rays, whose energy certain atoms somehow caught and radiated? Marie's real achievement was to cut through the complicated and obscure observations with a crystal-clear analysis of the set of conclusions that, however unexpected, were logically possible.

Marie tested all the known elements in order to determine if other elements or minerals would make air conduct electricity better, or if uranium alone could do this. In this task she was assisted by a number of chemists who donated a variety of mineral samples, including some containing very rare elements. In April 1898 her research revealed that thorium compounds, like those of uranium, emit Becquerel rays. Again the emission appeared to be an atomic property. To describe the behavior of uranium and thorium she invented the word “radioactivity” --based on the Latin word for ray.

Next: The Discovery of Polonium and Radium

Also:Radioactivity: The Unstable Nucleus

fRANCE WAS LESS FORTHCOMING than other countries when it came to honoring the Curies' work. In early June 1903 both Curies were invited to London as guests of the prestigious Royal Institution. Since custom ruled out women lecturers, Pierre alone described their work in his “Friday Evening Discourse.” He was careful, however, to describe Marie's crucial role in their collaboration. The audience included representatives of England's social elite and such major scientists as Lord Kelvin. Kelvin showed his respect by sitting next to Marie at the lecture and by hosting a luncheon in Pierre's honor the following day.

Britain's Lord Kelvin, whose contributions in several fields helped shape the scientific thought of his era, openly displayed his admiration for Pierre's scientific achievements.

The attention that English scientists paid to the Curies' work helped make them household names in that country, as in this famous caricature, “Radium,” from the popular British periodicalVanity Fair.

But all was not well that weekend. Pierre was in such bad health that he had experienced difficulty in dressing himself before the talk. His fingers were so covered with sores that he spilled some radium in the hall while demonstrating its properties. Ill health, however, kept neither Curie from noting the value of the jewels worn by the members of English high society they met in the course of the weekend. They amused themselves by estimating the number of fine laboratories they could set up with the proceeds from selling those jewels.

ISITORS FROM ABROAD also helped honor Marie on the occasion

of her formal thesis defense in June 1903. Her sister Bronya made the difficult trip from Poland to celebrate Marie's academic triumph. 

Bronya had insisted that the first woman to receive a doctorate in France should

acknowledge the special event by wearing a new dress. Characteristically, Marie chose a black dress. Like the navy wedding outfit she had chosen eight years earlier, the new dress could be worn in the lab without fear of stains.

Title page of the published version of Marie Curie's doctoral thesis, “Research on Radioactive Substances.” The examiners exclaimed that Curie's doctoral research contributed more to scientific knowledge than any previous thesis project.

Another foreign admirer was a last-minute guest at a dinner to celebrate Marie's achievement. New Zealand-born scientist Ernest Rutherford, who was also actively engaged in research in the new science of radioactivity, was visiting Paris. He had stopped by the Municipal School shed where Marie isolated radium, and at dinner that night he asked Marie how they managed to work in such a place. “You know,” he said, “it must be dreadful not to have a laboratory to play around in.”

AMILY LOSSES UNDERCUT some of the pleasure Marie could take in her own

achievements. In August 1903 she experienced a miscarriage. Some time later Bronya's second child died of tubercular meningitis. And against the backdrop of these specific losses was the fact that Pierre's health continued to deteriorate. Sometimes unbearable pain kept him awake all night, lying weakly in bed, moaning.

“I had grown so accustomed to the idea of the child that I am absolutely desperate and cannot be consoled.”--letter from Marie Curie to Bronya, August 25, 1903

Marie Curie in 1903, the year her thesis was published. (Photo ACJC)

Next: The Nobel Prize and its Aftermath

A Fatal Accident

IFE WAS SEEMING A BIT ROSIER to Pierre Curie in the spring of 1906. During the family's recent Easter holiday in the country, he had

enjoyed watching the efforts of 8-year-old Irène to net butterflies and of 14-month-old Eve to keep her footing on the uneven turf. More crucially, perhaps, Pierre had become involved in his work again.

Pierre Curie's agenda for Thursday, April 19, 1906, was that of a man fully engaged in both professional and social life. After a luncheon of the Association of Professors of the Science Faculties, he was scheduled to go over proofs with his publisher and to visit a nearby library. He was looking forward to entertaining a number of fellow scientists at the Curie home that evening.

IERRE CURIE WAS NOT FATED to complete that day's activities. After

working in the laboratory all morning, he braved the heavy rain, umbrella in hand, and traveled across Paris to his luncheon meeting. There he spoke forcefully on a number of issues that concerned him, including widening career options for junior faculty and drafting legal codes to help prevent laboratory accidents.

After the meeting was over he headed out toward his publisher in the rain, only to find that the doors were locked because of a strike. Hurrying to cross the street, he was run over by a horse-drawn wagon with a load of military uniforms, weighing some six tons. He was killed instantly.

When Pierre's father learned that his son had been killed crossing a Paris street in traffic on a rainy day, he said, “What was he dreaming of this time?” (Painting by Childe Hassam, 1893)

“He wasn't careful enough when he was walking in the street, or when he rode his bicycle. He was thinking of other things.” --Pierre Clerc, the Sorbonne lab assistant who identified Curie's body

ARIE DID NOT LEARN the news that would transform her life until that

evening. In shock, she began to attend to the necessary arrangements. She sent Irène next door to spend a few days with the neighbors, telegrammed the news to her family in Poland, and arranged to have the body brought to the house. Only after Pierre's older brother, Jacques, arrived the next day from Montpellier did she break down briefly. The news of Pierre Curie's death was carried in newspapers around the world, and Marie was inundated by letters and telegrams.

The day after the funeral was notable for two reasons. Encouraged by Jacques, Marie returned to her work. Also, Jacques informed Marie that the French government proposed to support her and the children with a state pension. Marie was adamant in her refusal, insisting that she was perfectly capable of

(above) Marie on the balcony of the Dluski apartment on rue d'Allemagne, Paris. In the diary Marie began 11 days after Pierre's death, she described putting a copy of this picture in Pierre's coffin: “it was the picture of the one you chose as your companion....” (Photo ACJC)

READ   Curie's words

supporting herself and the children.

“Crushed by the blow, I did not feel able to face the future. I could not forget, however, what my husband used to say, that even deprived of him, I ought to continue my work.”

If Marie was firm in rejecting the government's offer of support, she was less certain how to respond to an unexpected offer from the Sorbonne. On May 13, 1906, the university invited her to take up Pierre's academic post. By doing so, she hoped, she could one day establish, as a tribute to Pierre's memory, a state-of-the-art lab such as he had never had. It was not enough to be a teacher and researcher. She would have to learn how to create a scientific institution.

Next: Life Goes On

Curie family gravestone. Pierre was buried with his mother in the Curie family plot in Sceaux, on the outskirts of Paris, where eventually his father and Marie joined them. Many years later Pierre and Marie were reinterred in the Panthéon, the national sepulcher for the most eminent French citizens. (Photo ACJC)

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The right-wing French press, including the daily Excelsior, attacked Curie's candidacy for the French Academy with scurrilous and racist claims based on supposedly scientific analyses of her handwriting and facial characteristics.

 The Academy Debacle

SCANDAL-DRIVEN PRESS is not a recent phenomenon. Pierre and Marie

had been hounded by intrusive reporters as early as 1902, when news began to circulate about the medical uses of radium. After they won the Nobel Prize, reporters redoubled their attentions. But until late 1910 most press coverage of Marie Curie focused on the heroic labors of the blonde, foreign-born mother, wife, and then widow. Some of the press changed its tune, however, in November 1910, when Curie offered herself as a candidate for the single vacant seat for a physicist in the French Academy of Sciences.

Her main rival for the seat was 66-year-old Edouard Branly, whose scientific reputation was based on his contribution to wireless telegraphy. When Italian Gugliemo Marconi was awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work in that field, many French patriots felt stung by Branly's exclusion.

Branly's claim to the Academy chair was also championed by many French Catholics, who knew that he had been singled out for honor by the Pope. For generations French politics had been bitterly divided between conservative Catholics and liberal freethinkers like Marie and her friends, and the split ran through every public action.

Among the false rumors the right-wing press spread about Curie was that she was Jewish, not truly French, and thus undeserving of a seat in the French Academy. Although the liberal press came to her defense, the accusations did the intended damage. Branly won the election on January 23, 1911, by two votes. Curie responded to the snub characteristically, by throwing herself into her work.

“An academic tournament: Will a woman enter the Institute?” Marie was weighed against Edouard Branly, who taught at a leading Catholic institution.

“The struggle between you and M. Branly will arise most strongly on the clerical issue....Against him will be the forward-looking and university elements of the Academy....” --letter from Georges Gouy to Marie Curie, November 1910

Paul Langevin. The Langevins' 1902 marriage had deteriorated to such an extent by mid-July 1910 that Langevin left the family home for an apartment in Paris, not far from Curie's lab.

 The Langevin Affair

N EVEN WORSE SCANDAL was to erupt before the end of 1911. That a woman who

was left a widow at 38 should become romantically attached again is not surprising. But when Curie's relationship with fellow physicist Paul Langevin moved beyond friendly collegiality to mutual love, she could not foresee where it would lead. Langevin, a brilliant former pupil of Pierre's, was unhappily married to a woman who came from a similar working-class background but lacked his educational attainments. With four children to raise, Madame Langevin complained that Paul placed his commitment to science above the needs of his family. 

“They can't comprehend at his house that he refuses magnificent situations...in private industry to dedicate himself to science,” wrote a friend of Langevin's. During the summer of 1911, as rumors about a relationship between Curie and Langevin began to spread, Madame Langevin began proceedings to bring about a legal separation.

Curie was the only woman at the 1911conference organized and subsidized by Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay. Discussions at this gathering of the world's top physicists opened the way to a new physics that would bring together relativity, the quantum, and radioactive atoms. Langevin, at far right, stands next to the young Albert Einstein. Rutherford stands above Curie, who confers with Poincaré.

That autumn Curie, Langevin, and some 20 other top physicists attended

an international conference in Brussels. While the scientists considered the challenge to modern physics presented by the discovery of radioactivity, the French press got hold of intimate letters that Curie and Langevin had exchanged (or forgeries based on them).

HE WIDOW HAD TARNISHED the good name of her deceased husband! This was only one of the accusations hurled at Curie during

her absence in Belgium. Resurrecting the lie that she was Jewish, some anti-Semitic newspapers decried the devastation wrought on a good Frenchwoman by a foreign Jewish home wrecker. Other reporters spread false hints that Curie's affair with Langevin had begun while Pierre was still alive, driving him to commit suicide in despair.

“The fires of radium which beam so mysteriously...have just lit a fire in the heart of one of the scientists who studies their action so devotedly; and the wife and the children of this scientist are in tears....” --Le Journal, November 4, 1911

On her return to France, Curie discovered an angry mob congregated in front of her home in Sceaux, terrorizing 14-year-old Irène and 7-year-old Eve. Curie and her daughters had to take refuge in the home of friends in Paris. Meanwhile Langevin and a journalist who had reviled Marie held a duel--an emotional but bloodless “affair of honor.”

Next: Illness and Rebirth Mathematician Emile Borel,

scientific director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, sheltered Curie and her daughters even when the minister of public instruction threatened to fire him for sullying French academic honor.

© 2000 -   2013 American Institute of Physics

The Radium Institute. After Germany declared war on France in 1914, only two people remained at the Institute: Curie and “our mechanic who could not join the army because of serious heart trouble.”

 Radiology at the Front

HREE GERMAN BOMBS fell on Paris on September 2, 1914, about a month

after Germany declared war on France. By that time construction of the Radium Institute was complete, although Curie had not yet moved her lab there. Curie's researchers had been drafted, like all other able-bodied Frenchmen.

The Radium Institute's work would have to wait for peacetime. But surely there were ways in which Curie could use her scientific knowledge to advance the war effort.

“I am resolved to put all my strength at the service of my adopted country, since I cannot do anything for my unfortunate native country just now...” --letter from Marie Curie to Paul Langevin, January 1, 1915

As the German army swept toward Paris, the government decided to move to Bordeaux. France's entire stock of radium for research was the single gram in Curie's lab. At the government's behest, Curie took a Bordeaux-bound train along with government staff, carrying the precious element in a heavy lead box. Unlike many, however, Curie felt her place was in Paris. After the radium was in a Bordeaux safe-deposit box, she returned to Paris on a military train.

X-rays could save soldiers' lives, she realized, by helping doctors see bullets, shrapnel, and broken bones. She convinced the government to empower her to set up France's first military radiology centers. Newly named Director of the Red Cross Radiology Service, she wheedled money and cars out of wealthy acquaintances.

She convinced automobile body shops to transform the cars into vans, and begged manufacturers to do their part for their country by donating equipment. By late October 1914, the first of 20 radiology

This “petite Curie,” which brought X-rays to the Front in World War I, was displayed in Paris in 1998 during the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of radium.

vehicles she would equip was ready. French enlisted men would soon dub these mobile radiology installations, which transported X-ray apparatus to the wounded at the battle front, petites Curies (little Curies).

Marie and Irène with X-ray equipment at a military hospital. After training Irène as a radiologist for a year, Curie deemed her daughter capable of directing a battle-front radiological installation on her own.

READ   Curie's words

LTHOUGH CURIE HAD LECTURED about X-rays at the Sorbonne, she had no personal

experience working with them. Intending to operate the petite Curie herself if necessary, she learned how to drive a car and gave herself cram courses in anatomy, in the use of X-ray equipment, and in auto mechanics. As her first radiological assistant she chose her daughter Irène, a very mature and scientifically well-versed 17-year-old. Accompanied by a military doctor, mother and daughter made their first trip to the battle front in the autumn of 1914.

“The use of the X-rays during the war saved the lives of many wounded men; it also saved many from long suffering and lasting infirmity.”--Marie Curie

Would Irène be traumatized by the sight of the soldiers' horrific wounds? To guard against a bad reaction, Curie was careful to display no emotion herself as she carefully recorded data about each patient.

Irène followed her mother's example. Heedless of the dangers of over-exposure to X-rays, mother and daughter were inadequately shielded from the radiation that helped save countless soldiers' lives. After the war the French government recognized Irène's hospital work by awarding her a military medal. No such official recognition came to Curie. Perhaps her role in the Langevin affair was not yet forgiven.

Next:A Military Radiotherapy Service

© 2000 -   2013 American Institute of Physics

French philanthropist Henri de Rothschild was enthralled by science and funded many research efforts. Rothschild grants helped Curie to support her scientific staff--including the man who would become Irène's husband and collaborator.

 The Marie Curie Radium Campaign

HE NEVER OVERCAME STAGE FRIGHT as a professor, though she

taught for nearly 30 years. Yet in order to turn the Radium Institute into a world-class institution, Curie shamelessly sought out assistance, just as she had done during the war years to create the radiological service. Throughout her career Curie had benefitted from the subsidies of wealthy French benefactors. Now, thanks to the interest of an American woman, U.S. citizens also became involved in filling the needs of the Radium Institute.

“[Curie], who handles daily a particle of radium more dangerous than lightning, was afraid when confronted by the necessity of appearing before the public.”--Stéphane Lauzanne, editor-in-chief of Le Matin

Despite her distrust of journalists, in May 1920 Curie agreed to give an interview to Mrs. William Brown Meloney, editor of an American women's magazine. In the interview Curie emphasized the needs of her institution, where research was just resuming following the devastating war.

Thanks to her alliance with industry, few labs in the world if any were better equipped with radium than Curie's. But Curie succeeded in shocking Meloney by emphasizing the fact that research and therapy centers in

Meloney, Irène, Marie and Eve shortly after their arrival in the United States, where the press dubbed Eve “the girl with the radium eyes.”

the United States together had about 50 times as much radium as the single gram she--the scientist who had discovered the element--had in her laboratory. When Meloney learned that Curie's most fervent wish was for a second gram for her laboratory, the editor organized a “Marie Curie Radium Campaign.”

Led by a committee of wealthy American women and distinguished American scientists, the campaign succeeded by soliciting contributions in the United States. Meloney also arranged for Curie to write an autobiographical work for an American publisher. The book would provide royalty income over the years. Equally important, it would capture in simple and moving prose the romantic and heroic image of science that was so helpful for public support and fund-raising.

The high point of Curie's 1921 tour of the United States was the White House presentation by President Warren G.

HE LANGEVIN AFFAIR could not be mentioned in print. On this

condition Curie agreed to travel to the United States to drum up support for her institute. Meloney wrested from editors across the country a promise to suppress the old story. When word got out that the President of the United States himself would present Curie with the gift of radium, French officials looked for a way to make up for past oversights. Curie refused the Legion of Honor award (as Pierre had refused it nearly two decades earlier). But she agreed to attend a benefit for the Radium Institute at the Paris Opera shortly before setting sail.

“I pray to thank the Minister, and to inform him that I do not in the least feel the need of a decoration, but

Harding, where she wore the same black dress she had worn to both Nobel ceremonies. Thanks to the Marie Curie Radium Campaign, she returned to Paris with ores, costly apparatus, and cash for her institute, in addition to the gram of radium. (Photo ACJC)

that I do feel the greatest need for a laboratory.”--Pierre Curie refusing the Legion of Honor, 1903

Her right hand was in a sling before she had been in the United States many days. So many people wanted to shake hands with the woman who had given humanity the gift of radium. Curie was grateful that her daughters were willing to stand in for her when she felt she could not bear another public function. Irène, for example, accepted some of the many honorary degrees granted to her mother by universities and colleges.

In 1920 Curie and a number of her

Curie with President Hoover in 1929, when she made a second U.S. tour sponsored by Meloney. This time she succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute, founded in 1925 with her sister Bronya as director.

colleagues created the Curie Foundation, whose mission was to provide both the scientific and the medical divisions of the Radium Institute with adequate resources. Over the next two decades the Curie Foundation became a major international force in the treatment of cancer.

AMPAIGNS TO RAISE MONEY from governments as well as from

individuals, were launched throughout the 1920s in many countries including France itself. Marie's scientist friends were especially active. Insisting that the quickest way to a progressive future was to foster research, they formed partnerships with liberal and socialist politicians, and they supported political parties that would increase government funding. Despite her shyness Marie helped in the work of lobbying, going with her friends from office to office. She could argue fervently, but her appearance alone was the strongest argument. A frail and aging woman dressed in black, already a legendary figure, she had--as one observer put it--the appearance and moral force of a Buddhist monk.

Next: A World Center for the Study of Radioactivity

Also:The Romantic Legend