Historical Figure
Marie Curie
1867–1934
Polish-French physicist and chemist (1867–1934)
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Biography
Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie, better known as Marie Curie, was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie "for their joint researches on the radioactivity phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "[for] the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element".
In Their Own Words (5)
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
Response to a reporter seeking an interview during a vacation with her husband in Brittany, who mistaking her for a housekeeper, asked her if there was anything confidential she could recount, as quoted in Living Adventures in Science (1972), by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas , 1972
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery also has its beauty. Neither do I believe that the spirit of adventure runs any risk of disappearing in our world. If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity.
As quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 341 , 1937
I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.
Instructions regarding a proposed gift of a wedding dress for her marriage to Pierre in July 1895, as quoted in ''Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 137 , 1937
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
As quoted in The Commodity Trader's Almanac 2007 (2006) by Scott W. Barrie and Jeffrey A. Hirsch, p. 44 , 2006
I believe international work is a heavy task, but that it is nevertheless indispensable to go through an apprenticeship in it, at the cost of many efforts and also of a real spirit of sacrifice: however imperfect it may be, the work of Geneva has a grandeur that deserves our support.
Letter to Eve Curie (July 1929), as quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 341 , 1937
Timeline
The story of Marie Curie, told in moments.
Born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire. The youngest of five children. Her mother, a teacher, dies of tuberculosis when Maria is ten. Her father teaches math and physics.
Arrives in Paris with almost nothing. She enrolls at the Sorbonne, lives in a sixth-floor garret, and sometimes faints from hunger. She graduates first in her physics degree in 1893, second in mathematics in 1894.
Marries Pierre Curie. No white dress, no rings. She wears a dark blue suit she can later use in the laboratory. Their wedding gift to each other: bicycles.
Marie and Pierre announce the discovery of radium. They've also discovered polonium earlier that year, named for Marie's homeland. She coins the term "radioactivity." The work is done in a converted shed with a leaking roof. No ventilation. No funding.
Shares the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Henri Becquerel. The committee nearly excluded her. Pierre insisted she be named. She is the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Pierre is killed instantly when he steps in front of a horse-drawn cart on a rainy Paris street. Marie is 38. She takes over his professorship at the Sorbonne. First woman to teach there.
The French press publishes letters between Marie and physicist Paul Langevin, a married man. The scandal erupts weeks before her second Nobel Prize. Mobs gather outside her house. The Nobel committee asks her not to come to Stockholm. She goes anyway.
Dies of aplastic anemia at a sanatorium in Passy, France. She is 66. The disease is caused by decades of radiation exposure. Her personal belongings, her furniture, even her cookbooks, are still so radioactive they're kept in lead-lined boxes at the Bibliotheque nationale. Researchers who want to view them must sign a liability waiver and wear protective gear.
Show full timeline (11 entries)
Wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Alone this time. First person to win two Nobel Prizes. First person to win in two different sciences. The French press ignores the prize and runs stories about her affair with physicist Paul Langevin instead.
World War I begins. Marie equips ambulances with portable X-ray machines and drives them to the front lines herself. The soldiers call them "petites Curies." She teaches her 17-year-old daughter Irene to operate the equipment. Together they X-ray over a million wounded soldiers.
Her remains are moved to the Pantheon in Paris. First woman honored there on her own merits. Her coffin is lined with an inch of lead.
Artifacts (3)
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