Famous Woman Physicist
Marie Curie was born in Warsaw. Her father was a physics teacher. Her mother who passed away when Marie was only 11 years old, was also an educator. Marie graduated with high honors in her early schooling, after this she found herself without options in Poland for higher education.
Marie went and spent some time as a governess and in 1891 and traveled to Paris. In Paris, she decided to enroll at the University of Sorbonne. She graduated from the college with first place in physics (1893), and then on a scholarship she later returned for a degree in mathematics in which she took second place (1894).
First she discovered radioactivity in thorium, then she begin to demonstrate that the radioactivity is not a property of an interaction between elements but is an atomic property. She found out that the harmful properties of x-rays were able to kill tumors. In 1898, she published her hypothesis of a still-unknown radioactive element, and worked with pitchblende and chalcolie, both uranium ores, to isolate this element. Pierre her husband then joined her in her research. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered the first polonium and then radium. On January 12, 1902 Marie Curie isolated pure radium, and her 1903 dissertation resulted in the first advanced scientific research degree to be awarded to a woman in France which was the first doctorate in science awarded to a woman in all of Europe.
In 1903, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Also in 1904, the Curies established the use of radiation therapy for cancer and lupus. Her husband Pierre was later killed in 1906. She was then stuck raising her two daughters Irene and Eve. Irene was later awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, and Eve became an accomplished author. However, Marie was offered a national pension, but she turned it down. No longer then a month after her husbands death, she was offered his chair at the Sorbonne, and she accepted. Two years later she was elected a full professor she was the first woman to hold a chair at the Sorbonne.
Marie's Treatise on Radioactivity was published in 1910. In early in 1911, she was denied election to the French Academy of Sciences by one vote which stated "Women cannot be part of the Institute of France." After the situation she refused to have her name resubmitted for nomination and she refused to allow the Academy to publish any of her work for ten whole years. That same year she was appointed director of the Institute for Radioactivity in Warsaw and she was awarded a second Nobel Prize.
Marie chose to support War world 1 by putting her prized winnings into war bonds and fitted ambulances with portable x-ray equipment for medical purposes. She also drove the vehicles to the front lines. She established two hundred permanent x-ray installations in France and Belgium. After the war, her daughter Irene joined Marie Curie as an assistant at the laboratory then the Curie Foundation was established in 1920 to work on medical applications for radium. Marie Curie took an important trip to the United States in 1921 to accept the generous gift of a gram of pure radium for research.
Marie Curie and her daughter Irene contracted leukemia by her repeated exposure to radioactive material. Her notebooks are still so radioactive that they cannot be handled. Marie Curie died of pernicious anemia in 1934.
Marie went and spent some time as a governess and in 1891 and traveled to Paris. In Paris, she decided to enroll at the University of Sorbonne. She graduated from the college with first place in physics (1893), and then on a scholarship she later returned for a degree in mathematics in which she took second place (1894).
First she discovered radioactivity in thorium, then she begin to demonstrate that the radioactivity is not a property of an interaction between elements but is an atomic property. She found out that the harmful properties of x-rays were able to kill tumors. In 1898, she published her hypothesis of a still-unknown radioactive element, and worked with pitchblende and chalcolie, both uranium ores, to isolate this element. Pierre her husband then joined her in her research. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered the first polonium and then radium. On January 12, 1902 Marie Curie isolated pure radium, and her 1903 dissertation resulted in the first advanced scientific research degree to be awarded to a woman in France which was the first doctorate in science awarded to a woman in all of Europe.
In 1903, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Also in 1904, the Curies established the use of radiation therapy for cancer and lupus. Her husband Pierre was later killed in 1906. She was then stuck raising her two daughters Irene and Eve. Irene was later awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, and Eve became an accomplished author. However, Marie was offered a national pension, but she turned it down. No longer then a month after her husbands death, she was offered his chair at the Sorbonne, and she accepted. Two years later she was elected a full professor she was the first woman to hold a chair at the Sorbonne.
Marie's Treatise on Radioactivity was published in 1910. In early in 1911, she was denied election to the French Academy of Sciences by one vote which stated "Women cannot be part of the Institute of France." After the situation she refused to have her name resubmitted for nomination and she refused to allow the Academy to publish any of her work for ten whole years. That same year she was appointed director of the Institute for Radioactivity in Warsaw and she was awarded a second Nobel Prize.
Marie chose to support War world 1 by putting her prized winnings into war bonds and fitted ambulances with portable x-ray equipment for medical purposes. She also drove the vehicles to the front lines. She established two hundred permanent x-ray installations in France and Belgium. After the war, her daughter Irene joined Marie Curie as an assistant at the laboratory then the Curie Foundation was established in 1920 to work on medical applications for radium. Marie Curie took an important trip to the United States in 1921 to accept the generous gift of a gram of pure radium for research.
Marie Curie and her daughter Irene contracted leukemia by her repeated exposure to radioactive material. Her notebooks are still so radioactive that they cannot be handled. Marie Curie died of pernicious anemia in 1934.
