|
Marie Curie – Biography
 Marie Curie, née 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.For further details, cf.
Biography of Pierre Curie. Mme.
Curie died at Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4,
1934.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921.
for more:
|
Marie Curie, née 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.