Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish-born French chemist and physicist famous for her work on radioactivity. She was one of the rare double Nobel Prize winners—in physics (1903) and chemistry (1911.) Curie stands as one of the most significant and influential scientists of the twentieth century. She was also the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Europe.
Born Maria Salomea Skłodowska in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland, Curie was a brilliant student; she gained a gold medal during her secondary education. She moved to Paris when she was 24 years old to begin studying physics. She married her laboratory companion Pierre Curie, and together they discovered two important new elements: polonium, which she named after her native Poland, and radium. Both elements were discovered radioactive (she coined the term.) Marie and Pierre shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics with Antoine Henri Becquerel, who had discovered radiation from uranium the year before. Marie was the first women to receive a Nobel Prize for science.
In 1906, Pierre was run down by a heavy carriage and killed instantly. He had left home after a quarrel and she had not said goodbye to him.
After Pierre’s death, Marie continued work on radium, and, in 1911, became the first scientist to receive a second Nobel Prize. This scientific distinction and the advent of World War I distracted from news of her love affair with a married friend and colleague, Paul Langevin (1872–1946.)
Polonium and radium, initiated the nuclear age. The harmful effects of radioactivity weren’t completely discovered until World War II. Curie died of leukemia from a lifetime of exposure to radioactive materials. She remained humble about her achievements and donated her prize money always. Upon her death, Albert Einstein said, “Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted.”
All of Marie Curie’s research materials and notes, even her cookbooks, are too unsafe to examine because of their high level of radioactivity. They are stored in lead-lined boxes.
A year after Marie’s death, the Curies’ daughter Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956) and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900–1958) were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of artificial radioactivity.
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Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. A well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Humanity, Accomplishment
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Resolve, Progress
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Action, Doing
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
—Marie Curie
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Fear, Anxiety, Education, Living, Understanding, Life, Challenges
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