Why do we love Marie?
The most famous and lauded woman in all of science and one of the most famous scientists in history, Marie Curie began her life as Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland. She was brought up to believe strongly in education for women. She helped finance her sister's medical education and illegally taught female factory workers, all before going on to finish her own education in Paris. With her husband and on her own, Marie made some of the most important discoveries in both Physics and Chemistry, and was responsible for developing portable X-Ray technology, complete with female
technicians, for use on the fields of battle in World War I. The first female recipient of the Nobel Prize, she won two in her life and saw one of
her daughters and both sons-in-law go on to win the prestigious award. She died of leukemia likely brought on by her extensive exposure to radiation.
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Biography:
Born - November 7, 1867
Warsaw, Poland
Died - July 4, 1934
Sallanche, France
Achievements:
- In 1898, she and her husband discovered two new elements, radium and polonium, and coined the term "radioactivity."
- Appointed lecturer in physics at the École Normale Supérieure for girls in Sévres in 1900, and introduced there a method of teaching based on experimental demonstrations.
- Became the first female winner of the Nobel Prize, with her husband Pierre, for their discoveries; they shared the award for Physics in 1903 with Antoine Henri Bacquerel.
- Became the first female lecturer at the Sorbonne in 1906, and the first female full professor there in 1908.
- Won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on her own in 1911 for isolating pure radium. She was the first person ever, male or female, to win the Nobel Prize twice.
- Made a member of the International Commission on Intellectual Co-operation by the Council of the League of Nations in the 1920s.
- Developed the Curie Foundation in Paris to fund research in physics, chemistry, and medicine.
- Established the Radium Institute in Warsaw in 1932, of which her sister Bronia became director.
- In 1995, she became the first woman to have her ashes enshrined for her own achievements in the Panthéon in Paris, the "shrine to the great men of France."
- The curie unit is named after her. It is defined as the activity of 1 gram of radium; 3.7 x 1010 disintegrations (that's 10 to the 10th power).
- There are craters on the Moon and Mars named after her, and NASA has a Martian rover named after her that is planned to explore the planet in 2001.
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