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The Nobel laureate Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist known worldwide for her work with radiation.
Content
Childhood and early years Scientific activity Main works Awards and achievements Personal life and legacy Interesting facts
Childhood and early years
Maria Sklodovskaya (married Curie) was the youngest of five children of Bronislava and Vladislav Sklodovsky.
Both of her parents were teachers.
From an early age, the girl followed in her father's footsteps, keenly interested in mathematics and physics.
Having received her primary education at the school of Ya.
Sikorskaya, Maria enters the women's gymnasium, which she graduated from in 1883 with a gold medal.
She was ordered to enter the Warsaw University for Men, and therefore she can only agree to the position of a teacher at a Flying university.
However, Maria is in no hurry to part with the dream of getting the coveted academic degree, and concludes a deal with her older sister Bronislava that she will initially support her sister, for which her sister will help her in the future.
Maria takes on all sorts of work, becomes a private tutor and governess to earn money for her sister's education.
And at the same time, she is engaged in self education, enthusiastically reading books and scientific works.
She also starts her own scientific practice in a chemical laboratory.
In 1891, Maria moved to France, where she entered the Sorbonne University in Paris.
There, her name is transformed into the French name Marie.
Due to the fact that she had nowhere to wait for financial support, the girl, trying to earn a living, gives private lessons in the evenings.
In 1893, she received a master's degree in physics, and the following year – a master's degree in mathematics.
Maria begins her scientific works with studies of various types of steel and their magnetic properties.
The search for a larger laboratory leads her to meet Pierre Curie, at that time a teacher at the School of Physics and Chemistry.
He will help the girl find a suitable place for research.
Maria makes several attempts to return to Poland and continue her scientific activities in her homeland, but they refuse to conduct this activity there, simply because she is a woman.
Eventually, she returns to Paris to get her PhD.
Scientific activity
In 1896, the discovery of Henry Becquerel about the ability of uranium salts to emit inspires Marie Curie to new, deeper studies of this issue.
Using an electrometer, she discovers that the emitted rays remain unchanged, regardless of the state or type of uranium.
After a closer study of this phenomenon, Curie discovers that the rays come from the atomic structure of the element, and are not the result of the interaction of molecules.
It is this revolutionary discovery that will be the beginning of atomic physics.
Since the family could not exist only on earnings from research activities, Marie Curie takes up teaching at a Higher normal school.
But, at the same time, she continues to work with two samples of uranium minerals, uraninite and torbernite.
Interested in her research, Pierre Curie gave up his own work with crystals in 1898 and joined Maria.
Together, they begin to search for substances that can emit radiation.
In 1898, working with uraninite, they discover a new radioactive element, which is called "polonium", in honor of Maria's homeland.
All in the same year, they will discover another element, which will be called "radium".
Then they will introduce the term "radioactivity".
To ensure that there is no shadow of doubt about the authenticity of their discovery, Pierre and Maria embark on a desperate venture – to obtain polonium and radium in pure form from uraninite.
And, in 1902, they managed to isolate radium salts by fractional crystallization.
During the same period, from 1898 to 1902, Pierre and Maria published at least 32 articles in which they described in detail the process of their work with radioactivity.
In one of these articles, they claim that cells affected by tumors are destroyed faster than healthy cells under the influence of radiation.
In 1903, Marie Curie received her doctorate from the University of Paris.
In the same year, Pierre and Marie Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, which they would accept only in 1905.
In 1906, after the death of Pierre, Maria was offered the position of head of the Department of Physics, which was previously occupied by her late husband, and a professorship at the Sorbonne, to which she willingly agrees, intending to create a world class scientific laboratory.
In 1910, Marie Curie successfully obtained the element radium and determined the international unit of measurement of radioactive radiation, which would later be named after her Curie.
In 1911, she again becomes the winner of the Nobel Prize, this time in the field of chemistry.
International recognition, along with the support of the French government, helps Sklodovskaya Curie to establish the Radium Institute in Paris – an institution aimed at conducting research in the field of physics, chemistry and medicine.
During the First World War, Marie Curie opened a radiology center to help military doctors in caring for wounded soldiers.
Under her leadership, twenty mobile radiological laboratories are being assembled, and another 200 radiological units are being placed in field hospitals.
According to the available evidence, more than a million wounded people were examined with the help of its X ray machines.
After the war, she will publish a book "Radiology at War", in which she will describe in detail her wartime experience.
Over the following years, Marie Curie travels to different countries in search of funds necessary to continue research on the properties of radium.
In 1922, she became a member of the French Academy of Medicine.
Maria is also elected a member of the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations.
In 1930, Marie Curie Sklodovskaya became an honorary member of the International Committee of Atomic Weights.
Main works
Marie Curie — in addition to the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium, as well as the isolation of radioactive isotopes belongs to the introduction of the term "radioactivity" and the formulation of the theory of radioactivity.
Awards and achievements
In 1903, for outstanding achievements in joint research of the phenomenon of radioactivity, discovered by Professor Henry Becquerel, Marie Curie, together with her husband Pierre Curie, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1911, Maria again won the Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, for the isolation of radium in its pure form, as well as for studying the nature and properties of this remarkable element.
Buildings, institutions, universities, public places, streets and museums will be named in her honor, and her life and works will be described in works of art, books, biographies and films.
Personal life and legacy
Maria was introduced to her future husband, Pierre Curie, by a Polish physicist, Professor Jozef Kowalski Verusz.
Mutual sympathy arises instantly, because both were captured by a common passion for science.
Pierre offers Maria to marry him, but is refused.
Without despair, Pierre again asks for her hand, and on July 26, 1895, they are married.
Two years later, their union was blessed with the birth of their daughter Irene.
In 1904, their second daughter Eva was born.
Marie Curie Sklodovskaya, who suffered from hypoplastic anemia due to prolonged exposure to radiation, died on July 4, 1934 in the sanatorium Sansellmose in Passy, in the department of Haute Savoie.
She was buried next to Pierre in the French commune of Sceaux.
However, in sixty years their remains will be transferred to the Paris Pantheon.
Interesting facts
Marie Curie became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize, and the only woman to receive this prestigious award in the dissimilar fields of two different sciences.
Thanks to Maria, the term "radioactivity" appeared in science.
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Briefly
Activity Exact Sciences, Physicist
Date of birth November 7, 1867
Zodiac sign Scorpio
Date of death July 4, 1934
Place of birth Kingdom of Poland, Warsaw
Full name (Rus) Maria Sklodovskaya Curie
Full name (English) Maria Sklodowska Curie
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