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 PhD 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 identified as radioactive (she coined the term.) Marie and Pierre shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Antoine Henri Becquerel, who had discovered radiation from uranium the year before. Marie was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in 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, in chemistry. This scientific distinction and the advent of World War I distracted from the news of her love affair with a married friend and colleague, Paul Langevin.
Polonium and radium initiated the nuclear age. The harmful effects of radioactivity weren’t ultimately 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’s daughter Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956) and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of artificial radioactivity.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Marie Curie
We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Science
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Action, Doing
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
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
—Marie Curie
I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science … it is by this daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Science, Knowledge
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: Education, Understanding, Life, Fear, Challenges, Anxiety, Living
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Progress, Endurance, Resolve, Perseverance
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Jealousy, Humanity, Growth, Service
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
—Marie Curie
Topics: Living, Persistence
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