Marie Curie 1867-1934

Dr. Marie Curie is known to the world as the scientist who discovered radioactive metals i.e. Radium & Polonium.
Marie Curie was a Polish physicist and chemist who lived between 1867-1934. Together with her husband, Pierre, she discovered two new elements (radium and polonium, two radioactive elements that they extracted chemically from pitchblende ore) and studied the x-rays they emitted. She found that the harmful properties of x-rays were able to kill tumors. By the end of World War I, Marie Curie was probably the most famous woman in the world. She had made a conscious decision, however, not to patent methods of processing radium or its medical applications.
Marie Curie was born November 7, 1867 in Poland and died on July 4, 1934. Her co-discovery with her husband Pierre Curie of the radioactive elements radium and polonium represents one of the best known stories in modern science for which they were recognized in 1901 with the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1911, Marie Curie was honored with a second Nobel prize, this time in chemistry, to honor her for successfully isolating pure radium and determining radium's atomic weight.
As a child, Marie Curie amazed people with her great memory. She learned to read when she was only four years old. Her father was a professor of science and the instruments that he kept in a glass case fascinated Marie. She dreamed of becoming a scientist, but that would not be easy. Her family became very poor, and at the age of 18, Marie became a governess. She helped pay for her sister to study in Paris. Later, her sister helped Marie with her education. In 1891, Marie attended the Sorbonne University in Paris where she met and married Pierre Curie, a well-known physicist.

MARIE CURIE 2011

MARIE CURIE nobel

Marie Sklodowska (sklaw DAWF skah) was born November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She would become famous for her research into radioactivity, and was the first woman to win a Nobel prize.

Marie grew up in a family that valued education. As a young woman she went to Paris to study mathematics, chemistry and physics. She began studying at the Sorbonne in 1891, and was the first woman to teach there. She adopted the French spelling of her name (Marie) and also met Pierre Curie, who taught physics at University of Paris. Marie and Pierre soon married, and teamed up to conduct research on radioactive substances. They found that the uranium ore, or pitchblende, contained much more radioactivity than could be explained solely by the uranium content.

The Curie’s began a search for the source of the radioactivity and discovered two highly radioactive elements, “radium” and “polonium.” The Curie's won the 1903 Nobel prize for physics for their discovery. They shared the award with another French physicist, Antoine Henri Bacquerel, who had discovered natural radioactivity. In 1906 Pierre, overworked and weakened by his prolonged exposure to radiation, died when he was run over by a horse drawn wagon.

Madame Curie continued her work on radioactive elements and won the 1911 Nobel prize for chemistry for isolating radium and studying its chemical properties. In 1914 she helped found the Radium Institute in Paris, and was the Institute's first director. When the first world war broke out, Madame Curie thought X-rays would help to locate bullets and facilitate surgery. It was also important not to move the wounded, so she invented X-ray vans and trained 150 female attendants.

On July 4, 1934, at the age of 67 Madame Curie died of leukemia (aplastic pernicious anemia), thought to have been brought on by exposure to the high levels of radiation involved in her research. After her death the Radium Institute was rename the Curie Institute in her honor.

MARIE 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 second Nobel 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.

MARIE CURIE

Marie Curie was born Marya Salomee Sklodowska (sklaw DAWF skah) in Poland when that part of the country was under Russian rule. She was the youngest of five children. She had a brother and three older sisters.

When she was four years old one of her older sisters taught her the alphabet, and Manya (as they called her) learned how to read. In fact, she could read better than Bronya who had taught her.

Her father was a professor. Sometimes the family would rent out rooms to students to help pay the bills. At one time they had ten boys living in the apartment with the family, and Manya had to sleep on a couch in the dining room.

Her mother was very ill with tuberculosis* and died of the disease when Manya was ten years old.

When she graduated from high school she won a gold medal because she had been such a good student. Her father knew she had worked very hard, and as a reward, she was permitted to spend a whole year in the country with relatives. She enjoyed a marvelous year with her cousins.

She wanted to study when she returned to Warsaw, but there was no money to send her away to college. She and her sister did private tutoring to earn money. Manya told her sister she would work to send her to school, then when Bronya became a doctor, she could return the favor. That's what they did.

Marie became a governess to a family in the country and also had an opportunity to teach several peasant children to read and write.

She fell in love with her employer's son, but his parents thought she wasn't rich enough or good enough to marry their son.

Her sister invited her to come to Paris to live and begin her studies. Manya changed her name to a French name, Marie. At the Sorbonne, the university, she chose to study mathematics and physics. While studying there she lived in a cold apartment and survived on very little food, but when she graduated she had the highest grades in the class. She had a master's degree in physics. Then she was awarded a scholarhip and was able to study further to get a master's degree in mathemetics. She would also later receive a doctorate in physics.

She met Pierre Curie and they married in 1895. With the money a cousin gave her for a wedding present, Marie bought two bicycles, one for herself and one for Pierre. They pedaled through the French countryside on their honeymoon.

Marie and Pierre in the laboratory

Pierre and Marie began experimenting together and discovered two new radioactive elements. She named one of them polonium* to honor her native country Poland, and the other they named radium* . They worked four years preparing a very small quantity of radium in order to prove there really was such an element. They had to work with a ton of pitchblende* uranium ore to accomplish this. The Austrian government had provided the ore, and they only had to pay for transporting it. Marie worked hard carrying very large jars of liquid during those years of experimenting.

In 1903 Pierre and Marie along with Henri Becquerel (ahn REE beck REL) received the Nobel Prize* in physics for their work and their discovery of radioactivity* . The money they received made life a little easier, and they also used some of it to help friends and family members. In 1911 she was again awarded the Nobel Prize for discovery of the two new elements polonium and radium.

The Curies had two daughters, Irene and Eve. They were good, loving parents. Pierre was offered a professor's job at the Sorbonne. Life seemed to be getting easier for them.

Then the unthinkable happened; Pierre was killed when he stepped out in front of a wagon being pulled by horses. Marie was in shock. What would she do without him? She felt like only half a person with Pierre gone, but she was strong and able to continue their work. They let her start teaching his classes at the Sorbonne. She was the first woman to teach at the university. Pierre's father, Dr. Curie lived with the family and helped to raise the girls. Four years later, he too died.

During the First World War Marie determined she could best serve by outfitting some cars with x-ray machines which could be taken to the battlefield hospitals. Bullets and shrapnel* could be located with x-rays to help the doctors treat the wounded soldiers. Irene, who was seventeen years old, helped her mother by becoming a nurse and working with her on the battlefield. Marie trained 150 women to become x-ray technicians.

Madame Curie made two trips to America to receive a gram of radium each time, first from President Warren Harding and eight years later from President Herbert Hoover.

In 1923 the French government gave her a pension of 40,000 francs a year in recognition of her lifetime of work in France.

She became ill and died from all her years of exposure to radium. Today doctors identify the disease as leukemia.

After Marie's death her daughter Irene and her husband Frederic Joliot received the Nobel prize for their work in atomic research. She followed in her mother's footsteps to also become a great scientist.

Many people have benefited from the discoveries made by Pierre and Marie Curie. The radiation which burned their skin as they worked with it, eventually came to be used to kill cancer cells in patients suffering from the disease.