Difference between revisions of "Marie Curie" - New World Encyclopedia
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| − | '''Marie Curie''' (Polish: '''Maria Skłodowska-Curie''', born '''Maria Skłodowska''', November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a [[Poland|Polish]]-[[France|French]] physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with Nobel | + | '''Marie Curie''' (Polish: '''Maria Skłodowska-Curie''', born '''Maria Skłodowska''', November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a [[Poland|Polish]]-[[France|French]] physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with [[Nobel Prize]]s in two different fields of science (physics and chemistry - due to the effects of sharing, she effectively obtained 1.25 Nobel Prizes). Madam Curie became the first woman appointed to teach at the Sorbonne. She was born in [[Warsaw]], and spent her early years there, but in 1891 at age 24, moved to [[France]] to study science in [[Paris]]. She obtained all her higher degrees and conducted her scientific career there. Marie became a naturalized [[French]] citizen. She founded the Curie Institutes in [[Paris]] and [[Warsaw]]. |
==Early Life== | ==Early Life== | ||
| Line 88: | Line 88: | ||
==Marie succumbs to radiation related illness== | ==Marie succumbs to radiation related illness== | ||
| − | Curie's death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anemia. | + | Curie's death near Sallanches in 1934 was from [[aplastic anemia]]. The illness was almost certainly due to her massive exposure to radiation during her work. Much of the work was carried out in a shed with no proper safety measures being taken. The damaging effects of hard radiation were not generally understood at that time. She was known to carry test tubes full of radioactive isotopes in her pocket, and store them in her desk drawer, resulting in massive exposure to radiation. |
At first, she was buried at the same cemetery in Sceaux where Pierre lay, but in 1995 their ash was transferred to the Panthéon in honor of their work. | At first, she was buried at the same cemetery in Sceaux where Pierre lay, but in 1995 their ash was transferred to the Panthéon in honor of their work. | ||
| − | Madam Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other is Linus Pauling. | + | Madam Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other is Linus Pauling. As of June 2006, she remains the only woman to win two Nobel prizes. |
| − | The Curie's passion for scientific research lived on in their daughter. | + | The Curie's passion for scientific research lived on in their daughter. Marie and Pierre's eldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935. |
==Awards== | ==Awards== | ||
Revision as of 19:49, 13 December 2006
|
Marie Curie | |
|---|---|
 Maria Skłodowska-Curie. | |
| Born |
November 7, 1867 |
| Died | July 4, 1934 Sancellemoz, France |
| Nationality | .svg){kind=small} Polish-.svg){kind=small} French
|
| Field | Physicist]] and chemist |
| Institutions | Sorbonne |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne and ESPCI |
| Academic advisor | Henri Becquerel |
| Notable students | André-Louis Debierne Marguerite Catherine Perey |
| Known for | Radioactivity |
| Notable prizes | Nobel Prize for Physics (1903) Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1911) |
| The only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different science fields. | |
Marie Curie (Polish: Maria Skłodowska-Curie, born Maria Skłodowska, November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science (physics and chemistry - due to the effects of sharing, she effectively obtained 1.25 Nobel Prizes). Madam Curie became the first woman appointed to teach at the Sorbonne. She was born in Warsaw, and spent her early years there, but in 1891 at age 24, moved to France to study science in Paris. She obtained all her higher degrees and conducted her scientific career there. Marie became a naturalized French citizen. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw.
Early Life
Born in Warsaw, Poland, then under the control of the Russian Empire, Maria Sklodowska, known by her nickname, Manya was a precocious learner. She demonstrated genius at age four when she astounded her parents by learning to read.
The Sklowdowska family descended from nobility. Although they had lost their lands and position, the family maintained their dignity by placing a high value on intellectual pursuits. Maria's father was a well respected teacher. Her mother founded a private school in Warsaw.
Maria's early family life was tragically marred by death. One sister died of typhus, and just four years later, her mother Bronislava, died of tuberculosis. Her grieving may have caused young Sklodowska to turn her passion to understanding things from a scientific rather than a religious perspective. Barbara Goldsmith, one of Maria Curie's biographers, found a passage written by the 16 year old Manya after her cousin's child was stillborn. The passage reveals her unwillingness to accept such tragedies as "God's will" as many who professed Christianity would have it. Maria wrote, "Let everybody keep his own faith so long as it is sincere. Only hypocrisy irritates me-and it is as widespread as true faith is rare...I hate hypocrisy." [1]
In spite of enormous family suffering, due in part to their patriotic activities, the family supported one another to such an extent that two sisters, Bronia and Maria, rose above their poverty and entered professions normally reserved for men, Bronia in medicine and Maria as a scientist.
As her intellect developed from girlhood to young womanhood, Maria turned toward "positivism", a concept introduced by the French philosopher, August Comte. Positivism stressed the empirical as opposed to the theoretical approach to solving problems and improving society. Polish positivists took this foundation and built upon it while promoting equal rights for women and a nonviolent approach to social change. This approach emphasized education as the means to achieve lasting progress. The profound influence of this philosophy, which demanded that assertions and conclusions be supported by verifiable evidence, left its hallmark on the thinking of young Marie. Positivism integrated with the scientific spirit of Curie's time as prevailing thinking emerged from the darkness of dogmatic religious assertions. Insistence on measurable data and verifiable proofs were hallmarks of Marie Curie's success in the field of science. Goldsmith suggests that these beliefs replaced religion for Curie and became a driving force for her achievements in life.
Maria Sklodowska maintained a deep relationship with her elder sister Bronia throughout her life. The sisters made an agreement that they would help each other advance their studies in turn. So Maria supported Bronia's study in France, first by becoming a tutor and later as a governess for a wealthy farming family in a remote area of Poland.
After graduating from high school at the top of her class at the age of fifteen, Maria was depleted of energy and was sent to the countryside to recover. Due to her gender and Russian (anti-Polish) reprisals following the January Uprising, she was not allowed admission to any university. However, she helped to promote and attended an underground educational project known as the Flying University.
Formal Higher Education
Eventually, with monetary assistance from her elder sister Bronia, Maria moved to Paris. Maria soon came to be known as "Marie", the French equivalent. She went to high school at the Collège Sévigné, and then studied physics and mathematics at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. She graduated first in her undergraduate class in the spring of 1893. A year later, she obtained her master's degree in mathematics, also at the Sorbonne. Under the doctoral supervision of Henri Becquerel, in 1903 she received her DSc from the City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Education Institute, becoming the first woman in France to complete her doctorate.
Partnership for Life and in Research
At the Sorbonne, she met and married another instructor, Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre were kindred spirits. Their relationship began through a shared passion for science. Dedication to the discovery of truth through scientific research seems to have been like a religion for the couple. Both Marie and Pierre were willing to sacrifice personal comfort for the cause of science, in service to humanity.
The Curies studied radioactive materials, particularly uranium pitchblende ore, which had the curious property of being more radioactive than the uranium extracted from it. By 1898, they deduced a logical explanation: that the pitchblende contained traces of some unknown radioactive component which was far more radioactive than uranium. On December 26, 1898 Marie Curie announced the discovery of a new substance which became known as polonium, after Marie's native country of Poland. A second previously unknown chemical element to be named radium due to its intense radioactivity was also uncovered.
Over several years of unceasing labor, the Curies refined several tons of uranium pitchblende, progressively concentrating the radioactive components. Eventually they isolated the chloride salts, (refining radium chloride on April 20, 1902).
Madam Curie occupies a significant place in the history of the science of radiation because she maintained, correctly, that radiation was a property of substances themselves, not just a phenomenon that occurred around atoms. In other words, the radioactive element would eventually give off enough of its own energy to disintegrate and reduce the mass of the original substance.
Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the ionizing radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". Marie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Not only was Marie a dedicated scientific researcher, but she was the mother of two daughters. Irene was born September 12, 1897. Eve was born on December 6th, 1904.
When Eve was barely fourteen months old, Pierre met an untimely death when he stepped into the rainy street in front of a heavily laden horsedrawn carriage on April 19, 1906.
Marie persists in her work
After her husband's death, Marie Curie was appointed to fill his vacated post at the Sorbonne. She was the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. Certainly the trauma of losing her life partner and closest scientific associate grieved Madam Curie. Her journal, which was meticulously kept, contains many letters written to the departed Pierre. He had been her colleague, her best friend and her dearly loved husband.
Some time later, perhaps compelled by loneliness and the need for intellectual companionship, Marie Curie began spending time with physicist and colleague Paul Langevin. Langevin was estranged from his wife at the time. Rumors about the relationship ensued and were used by her academic opponents in attempt to damage her credibility. Curie wisely ended the relationship after it became obvious that it would damage both her spirit and her ability to continue to be effective in her career.
Despite her fame as an honored scientist working for France, the public's attitude toward rumors about her relationship with Langevin tended towards xenophobia. She was a foreigner from an unknown land. Poland was still referred to as a geographical area under the Russian Tsar. It was an area with a significant Jewish population. Marie was raised as a Catholic, and was born into a gentry family, the Dołęga-Sklodowski, but she later became an atheist. At the time, France was still reeling from the effects of the Dreyfus affair so her scandal's effect on the public was all the more acute. It is a strange coincidence that Paul's grandson Michel later married Marie's granddaughter Hélène Langevin-Joliot.
Shortly after ending the relationship with Langevin, Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1911, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by 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". Henri Becquerel was instrumental in recommending her for the Nobel Prize when others were opposed, largely due to prejudice against women.
In an unusual move, Curie intentionally did not patent the radium isolation process, instead leaving it open so the scientific community could research unhindered. Her attitude toward fame and her contributions to the advancement of science reveals a selflessness and an altruism that was entirely in keeping with her natural predisposition. In a sense, she could be described as a "saintly scientist".
Just one month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, Marie was hospitalized with depression and kidney trouble.
World events soon overshadowed all else. Marie began a new chapter in her life with a very practical application of the discoveries she had made regarding radiation. World War I, which lasted from 1914-1919, brought an end to ordinary life in Europe and especially in France. Everyone's attention turned to the war effort. The defense of France became the paramount concern. In a letter to Langevin written in 1915, Marie Curie wrote, "I am resolved to put all my strength at the service of my adopted country since I cannot do anything for my unfortunate native country just now..." [2] During World War I, she pushed for the use of mobile radiography units, named "Little Curies" (or "petites Curies"), for the treatment of wounded soldiers. The X-ray technology was in its infancy but it was effective in helping doctors evaluate the condition of broken bones and bullet wounds. These units were powered using tubes of radium emanation, a colorless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later to be identified as radon. Marie provided the tubes, derived from the radium she purified. By the height of the conflict, she raised money and with the approval of the French government, commissioned several auto mechanic shops to construct twenty vehicles to carry the mobile radiography units. Her 17-year-old daughter, Irene became her first assistant. Both went to the battle front in 1914.
Marie Curie's autobiographical notes provide a description of how she gathered materials and established radiological centers as well. [3] It is fair to say that she pioneered the field of radiology in modern medicine at great personal and family sacrifice.
In her later years, she was disappointed by the myriad of physicians and makers of cosmetics who used radioactive material without precautions.
Curie's death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anemia. The illness was almost certainly due to her massive exposure to radiation during her work. Much of the work was carried out in a shed with no proper safety measures being taken. The damaging effects of hard radiation were not generally understood at that time. She was known to carry test tubes full of radioactive isotopes in her pocket, and store them in her desk drawer, resulting in massive exposure to radiation.
At first, she was buried at the same cemetery in Sceaux where Pierre lay, but in 1995 their ash was transferred to the Panthéon in honor of their work.
Madam Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other is Linus Pauling. As of June 2006, she remains the only woman to win two Nobel prizes.
The Curie's passion for scientific research lived on in their daughter. Marie and Pierre's eldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935.
Awards
- Nobel Prize for Physics* (1903)
- Davy Medal (1903)
- Matteucci Medal (1904)
- Nobel Prize for Chemistry* (1911)
- Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Chicago, June 14,1921
Tribute
Her younger daughter Eve Curie wrote the biography Madame Curie after Marie's death.
In 1995, Madame Curie was the first and only woman laid to rest under the famous dome of The Panthéon in Paris on her own merits (alongside her husband Pierre Curie).
Curie's picture was on the Polish inflationary late-1980s 20,000-zloty banknote. Her picture also appeared on the last French 500 franc note (with her husband Pierre Curie), and on stamps and coins.
Element 96 Curium (Cm) was named in honor of her and Pierre.
Notes
- ↑ Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius, The Inner World of Marie Curie, NY: Atlas Books published by W.W. Norton & Co., 2005 ISBN 0-393-05137-4 p 34
- ↑ from Center for History of Physics, a division of the American Institute of Physics, website www.aip.org Marie Curie History by Naomi Pasachoff c.2000-2006). www.aip.org
- ↑ Maries Curie, Autobiographical Notes, NY: Macmillan, New York, 1923
References and further reading
Books
- Curie, Eve Madame Curie: A Biography, NY: Da Cappo Press, 1986 (original 1937) ISBN 0306802813
- Quinn, Susdan Marie Curie: A Life Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996ISBN 0-201-88794-0
- goldsmith, Barbara Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie NY: W W Norton, 2005 ISBN 0-393-05137-4
- Enquist, Per Plav The Book about Blanche and Marie,Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2006. ISBN 1585676683, a fictionalized account of relationships among Curie, JM Charcot and Blanche Wittman
External links
- Marie and Pierre Curie and the Discovery of Polonium and Radium unabridged spinless right chronology from nobelprize.org
- 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – Nobel committee page; presentation speech, her award lecture etc.
- Concise biography at nobel-winners.com; GFDL
- The official web page of Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland in English.
- Detailed Biography at Science in Poland website; with quotes, photographs, links etc.
- Long biography at American Institute of Physics website (site also has a short version for kids entitled "Her story in brief!")
- Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum in Warsaw
- Marie Curie: A Nobel Prize Pioneer at the Panthéon
- European Marie Curie Fellowships
- Marie Curie Cancer Care, UK
- Marie Sklodowska Curie: Her Life as a Media Compendium
- Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Marie Curie
- Annotated bibliography of Marie Curie from the Alsos Digital Library
- Marie Curie on the 500 French Franc and 20000 old Polish Zloty banknotes.
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