She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. In , 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 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 , and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in , she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position.
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. 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.
Among her writing, Curie left behind this thought: "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. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.
Georges Sagnac, a friend and collaborator, eventually confronted her. But read scientific publications she did. In labs across Europe, scientists were studying new and surprising phenomena. Henri Becquerel was noting the emission of a different kind of mysterious rays, those from uranium salts.
Thomson discovered negatively charged particles, which we now know as electrons and which we now know are the source of X-rays. At first, she and other scientists were baffled about the source of the high-energy emissions. She wondered whether the emitted rays were violating a basic law of thermodynamics: the conservation of energy. Finally, she posited a daring hypothesis: The rays emitted might be a basic property of uranium atoms, which we now know to be subatomic particles released as the atoms decay.
Her theory had radical implications. It further meant that atoms are not necessarily stable. The device allowed her to measure extremely low electrical currents in air near mineral samples that contained uranium. She soon repeated the experiment with thorium, which behaved in similar ways.
But she was puzzled by data that showed that the intensity of the radiation emitted by uranium and thorium was greater than expected based on the amounts of the elements she knew to be in her samples.
In she indeed identified one of the substances and named it polonium, after her homeland. Five months later, she identified a second element, which the world came to know as radium. Pierre put his crystals aside to help his wife isolate these radioactive elements and study their properties.
Marie extracted pure radium salts from pitchblende, a highly radioactive ore obtained from mines in Bohemia. The extraction required tons of the substance, which she dissolved in cauldrons of acid before obtaining barium sulphate and other alkalines, which she then purified and converted into chlorides.
The separation of radium from the alkalines required thousands of tedious crystallizations. Working in a dilapidated shed with broken windows and poor ventilation, she nonetheless was able to make sensitive measurements.
It is remarkable, says Baisden, that Curie calculated the atomic weight of radium so accurately given such deplorable conditions. Both Curies were plagued by ailments—burns and fatigue—that, in retrospect, were clearly caused by repeated exposures to high doses of radiation. Both, too, were resistant to the suggestion that their research materials caused their ailments.
In , Curie became the first woman in France to earn a PhD in physics. Professors who reviewed her doctoral thesis, which was about radiation, declared that it was the greatest single contribution to science ever written. This revolutionary idea created the field of atomic physics.
Curie herself coined the word "radioactivity" to describe the phenomena. Working with the mineral pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in They named the element polonium, after Curie's native country of Poland.
They also detected the presence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende and called that radium. In , the Curies announced that they had produced a decigram of pure radium, demonstrating its existence as a unique chemical element. When World War I broke out in , Curie devoted her time and resources to help 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 and in — to raise funds to buy radium and to establish a radium research institute in Warsaw. Curie won two Nobel Prizes, for physics in and for chemistry in She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize as well as the first person—man or woman—to win the prestigious award twice.
She remains the only person to be honored for accomplishments in two separate sciences. Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics in , along with her husband and Henri Becquerel, for their work on radioactivity. With their win, the Curies developed an international reputation for their scientific efforts, and they used their prize money to continue their research. In , Curie won her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her discovery of radium and polonium.
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 and discuss the many groundbreaking discoveries in their field.
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