Marie Curie
- This article is about the physicist and chemist Marie Curie . For the school named after her, see École élémentaire Marie-Curie.
|
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). She also 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, and became a naturalized French citizen. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw.
Biography
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.
Her early family life was tragically marred by the death of a sister from typhus and just four years later the death, caused by tuberculosis, of her mother Bronislava. Such sufferings may have caused young Sklodowska to turn her passion to understand things away from the religious outlook. 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 which reveals her unwillingness to pretend 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." p. 34 <<Source: "Obsessive Genius, The Inner World of Marie Curie", by Barbara Goldsmith, Atlas Books published by W.W. Norton & Co., 2005 (ISBN 0-393-05137-4) >>
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 that emphasized education as the means to achieve lasting progress. The profound influence of this philosophy, which demanded that assertions and conclusions must be supported by verifiable evidence, left its hallmark on the thinking of the young woman who would later develop into the mature scientist, Prof. Marie Curie. Positivism itself became one with the scientific spirit of that age which emerged from the darkness of dogmatic religious assertions. Insisting on measurable data and proofs that could be verified were the hallmark 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.
The Sklowdowska family descended from nobility. Although they had lost their lands and positions they 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. In spite of enormous suffering, due in part to their patriotic activities, the family supported one another to the extent that two of the sisters, Bronia and Maria, were able to rise above their poverty and enter professions normally reserved for men, Bronia in medicine and Manya as a scientist.
Maria Sklodowska, later to become Marie Curie, 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.
Eventually, with the monetary assistance of her elder sister Bronia, she moved to Paris. She went to high school at the Collège Sévigné, and then studied physics and mathematics at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. Later she became the first woman to teach there. Maria changed her name to "Marie", the French equivalent, and 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 ESPCI, Paris, becoming the first woman in France to complete her doctorate. Becquerel was later instrumental in recommending her for the Nobel Prize when others were opposed largely due to their prejudice against women and, perhaps, foreigners.
At the Sorbonne, she met and married another instructor, Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre were kindred spirits and began their relationship by sharing a passion for science. Her dedication to the discovery of truth through scientific research seems to have been her form of religion in the sense that she was willing to sacrifice personal comfort for the cause of science in the service of humanity. Although her mother was Catholic, the budding scientist professed an atheism that preferred science as the source of knowledge over any other means such as faith or revelation. A telling comment which she wrote in her memoir of her late husband alluded to the fact that "... Pierre belonged to no religion and I did not practice any."<<need a reference here>>
Together they studied radioactive materials, particularly the 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 existence of this new substance which became known as Polonium. She occupies a significant place in the history of the Science of radiation because she maintained, correctly, that the radiation was a property of the substances themselves, not just a phenomenon that occurred around the 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.
Over several years of unceasing labor, they refined several tons of uranium pitchblende, progressively concentrating the radioactive components, and eventually isolating the chloride salts (refining radium chloride on April 20, 1902) and then two new chemical elements. The first they named polonium, after Marie's native country Poland, and the other was named radium, from its intense radioactivity.
Together with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics*, 1903: "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the ionizing radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Eight years later, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry*, 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".
In an unusual move, Curie intentionally did not patent the radium isolation process, instead leaving it open so the scientific community could research unhindered. Just one month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, Marie was hospitalized with depression and kidney trouble. Her attitude toward fame and toward 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".
She 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 being Linus Pauling. As of June 2006, she remains the only woman to win two Nobel prizes.
After her husband's death from a street accident, Marie Curie was appointed to fill his vacated post at the Sorbonne. Certainly the trauma of losing her life partner and her closest scientific associate, Pierre, upset Madame Curie. Her journal which she meticulously kept contains many letters written to the departed Pierre and reveals a sweet and tender relationship as well as the grieving process that the newly widowed Marie endured. <<Is there a reference for this?>>
Some time later, perhaps compelled by loneliness and the need for intellectual companionship, Marie Curie began spending more time than was seemly with physicist and colleague Paul Langevin. Langevin at the time had become estranged from his wife and took an apartment near the school where he and Marie Curie frequently met. The scandal which ensued was used by her academic opponents 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 the scandal tended towards xenophobia. She was a foreigner, from an unknown land. Poland was still referred to as a geographical area, under the Russian Tsar, an area known to have a significant Jewish population. Marie was raised as a Catholic, and was born into a gentry family Dołęga-Sklodowski], but she later became an atheist). France at the time was still reeling from the effects of the Dreyfus affair etc, so the 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.
World events soon overshadowed Paris scandals and 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 where everyone's attention turned to the war effort. The defense of France became the paramount concern and 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..."(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 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 personally provided the tubes, derived from the radium she purified. She also raised money and with the approval of the French government, commissioned several auto mechanic shops to construct the vehicles which numbered 20 by the height of the conflict. Her 17-year-old daughter, Irene became her first assistant and 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. <<Is there a reference for these notes?>> 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.
Her death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly due to her massive exposure to radiation in 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. She was known to remark on the pretty blue-green light the metals gave off in the dark. <<Reference for this?>>
At first, she was buried at the same cemetery in Sceaux where Pierre lay, but in 1995 their ash was transferred to the Panthéon to honor their works.
Her eldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935.
Prizes
- Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
- Davy Medal (1903)
- Matteucci Medal (1904)
- Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1911)
- Awarded an 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).
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon starred in the 1943 U. S. Oscar-nominated film based on her life.
French playwright Jean-Noël Fenwick's 1989 lighthearted drama, "Les Palmes de M. Schutz," is based on the early romance and scientific collaboration of Marie and Pierre Curie. A 1997 movie version starred Isabelle Hupert as Mme. 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.
See also
Notes
Full Name: Marie Sklodowska Curie
Life Time: Born in Warsaw Poland( November 7,1867) Died in Sancellemoz, France (July 4,1934)
Career: Polish- French physicist and chemist
References and further reading
Books
- Madame Curie: A Biography, by Eve Curie, ISBN 0-306-81038-7
- Marie Curie: A Life, by Susan Quinn, ISBN 0-201-88794-0
- Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, by Barbara Goldsmith, ISBN 0-393-05137-4
- The Book about Blanche and Marie, by Per Olov Enquist, 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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