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Marie Curie
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Born 7 November 1867
Warsaw, Vistula Country, Russian Empire
Died 4 July 1934 (aged 66)
Passy, France
Citizenship Russian, later French
Nationality Polish
Fields physics, chemistry
Institutions University oI Paris
Alma mater University oI Paris
ESPCI
Doctoral advisor Henri Becquerel
Doctoral students Andre-Louis Debierne
Oscar Moreno
Marguerite Catherine Perey
Known Ior radioactivity, polonium, radium
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics (1903)
Davy Medal (1903)
Matteucci Medal (1904)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)
Religious stance Agnostic
Notes
She is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences.
She was the wiIe oI Pierre Curie, and the mother oI Irene Joliot-Curie and Eve Curie.
Marie Sklodowska Curie (7 November 1867 4 July 1934) was a physicist and chemist
oI Polish upbringing and, subsequently, French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the Iield oI
radioactivity, the Iirst person honored with two Nobel Prizes,|1| receiving one in physics and
later, one in chemistry. She was the Iirst woman to serve as proIessor at the University oI Paris.
She was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw (then Vistula Country, Russian Empire;
now Poland) and lived there until she was twenty-Iour years old. In 1891 she Iollowed her elder
sister, Bronislawa, to study in Paris, where she obtained her higher degrees and conducted her
subsequent scientiIic work. She Iounded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. Her husband,
Pierre Curie, was a Nobel co-laureate oI hers, being awarded a Nobel prize in physics at the
same time. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, and son-in-law, Frederic Joliot-Curie, also received
Nobel prizes.
Her achievements include the creation oI a theory oI radioactivity (a term she coined
|2|), techniques Ior isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery oI two new elements,
polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's Iirst studies were conducted into the
treatment oI neoplasms (cancers), using radioactive isotopes.
While an actively loyal French citizen, she never lost her sense oI Polish identity. She
named the Iirst new chemical element that she discovered (1898) polonium Ior her native
country,|3| and in 1932 she Iounded a Radium Institute (now the Maria SklodowskaCurie
Institute oI Oncology)
in her home town, Warsaw, which was headed by her sister, Bronislawa, who was a
physician.Contents
Maria Sklodowska's birthplace on ulica Freta in Warsaw's "New Town"

Wladyslaw Sklodowski with daughters (Irom leIt) Maria, Bronislawa, Helena
Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on 7 November 1867, the IiIth and
youngest child oI well-known teach
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In 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-
rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence, did
not depend on an external source oI energy, but seemed to arise spontaneously Irom uranium
itselI. Becquerel had, in Iact, discovered radioactivity.
SklodowskaCurie decided to look into uranium rays as a possible Iield oI research Ior
a thesis. She used a clever technique to investigate samples. FiIteen years earlier, her husband
and his brother had invented the electrometer, a sensitive device Ior measuring electrical charge.
Using the Curie electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to
conduct electricity.|15| Using this technique, her Iirst result was the Iinding that the activity oI
the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity oI uranium present. She had shown that
the radiation was not the outcome oI some interaction oI molecules, but must come Irom the
atom itselI. In scientiIic terms, this was the most important single piece oI work that she
conducted.|16|
SklodowskaCurie's systematic studies had included two uranium minerals,
pitchblende and torbernite. Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was Iour times as active as
uranium itselI, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, iI her earlier results relating
the quantity oI uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small
quantities oI some other substance that was Iar more active than uranium itselI.|17|ers
Bronislawa and Wladyslaw Sklodowski.
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SklodowskaCurie visited Poland a last time in the spring oI 1934.|14| Only a couple
oI months later, Sklodowska-Curie died. Her death on 4 July 1934 at the Sancellemoz
Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, eastern France, was Irom aplastic anemia, almost certainly
it was contracted Irom exposure to radiation. The damaging eIIects oI ionizing radiation were not
then known, and much oI her work had been carried out in a shed, without taking any saIety
measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored
them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave oII in
the dark.|citation needed|
She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre. Sixty years
later, in 1995, in honor oI their achievements, the remains oI both were transIerred to the Paris
Pantheon. She became the Iirst woman so honored.
Her laboratory is preserved at the Musee Curie.
Due to their levels oI radioactivity, her papers Irom the 1890s are considered too
dangerous to handle. Even her cookbook is highly radioactive. They are kept in lead-lined boxes,
and those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.|30|
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The physical and societal aspects oI the work oI the Curies contributed substantially to
shaping the world oI the twentieth and twenty-Iirst centuries. Cornell University proIessor L.
Pearce Williams observes:
The result oI the Curies' work was epoch-making. Radium's radioactivity was so great
that it could not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle oI the conservation oI energy
and thereIore Iorced a reconsideration oI the Ioundations oI physics. On the experimental level
the discovery oI radium provided men like Ernest RutherIord with sources oI radioactivity with
which they could probe the structure oI the atom. As a result oI RutherIord's experiments with
alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was Iirst postulated. In medicine, the radioactivity oI radium
appeared to oIIer a means by which cancer could be successIully attacked.|23|
II the work oI Maria SklodowskaCurie helped overturn established ideas in physics
and chemistry, it has had an equally proIound eIIect in the societal sphere. In order to attain her
scientiIic achievements, she had to overcome barriers that were placed in her way because she
was a woman, in both her native and her adoptive country. This aspect oI her liIe and career is
highlighted in Franoise Giroud's Marie Curie: A LiIe, which emphasizes Sklodowska's role as a
Ieminist precursor. She was ahead oI her time, emancipated, independent, and in addition
uncorrupted. Albert Einstein is reported to have remarked that she was probably the only person
who was not corrupted by the Iame that she had won.|31|
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Marie Sklodowska-Curie was the Iirst woman to win a Nobel prize and the Iirst person
to win two Nobel Prizes.
1.Nobel Prize in Physics (1903)
2.Davy Medal (1903)
3.Matteucci Medal (1904)
4.Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)
The liIe oI Iamous scientists may not be luxurious. The Curies reportedly used part oI
their award money to replace wallpaper in their Parisian home and install modern plumbing into
a bathroom
Key-words:
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