Heroes We Wish are Immortals

wska, Polish: [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska]; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on r

ver married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobe

ysicist Pierre Curie, and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with him and with the physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the theory of "radioactivity"—a term she coined. In 1906 Pierre Curie died in a Paris street accident. Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium, using techniques she invented for isol

e died in 1934, aged 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I. In addition to her Nobel Pr

i

ly

ughters (from left) Maria,

known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski. The elder siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania) were Zofia (born 1862, n

ence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–65). This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria and her elder siblings, to a difficult struggle to get ahead i

tually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on a bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house. Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls; she resigned from the position afte

nd sister Bron

sion, she spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring. Unable to enroll in a regular institution of higher education because

Warsaw, where Maria did her

skis, who were relatives of her father. While working for the latter family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, a future eminent mathematician. His parents rejected the idea of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them. Maria's loss of the relationship with Żorawski was tragic for both. He soon ear

d by her father, who was able to secure a more lucrative position again. All that time she continued to educate herself, reading books, exchanging letters, and being tutored herself. In early 1889 she returned home to her father in Warsaw. She continued working as a governess and remained there until late 1891. She tutored, studied at

in

thematics at the University of Paris, where she enrolled in late 1891. She subsisted on her meagre resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the clothes she had. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. Skłodowska studied during the day an

tual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre Curie was an instructor at The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI Paris). They were introduced by Polish physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski,

d Marie Skłodow

d, even if it meant being reduced to teaching French. Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Skłodowska returned to Warsaw, where she visited her family. She was still laboring under the illusion that she would be able to work in her chosen field in Poland, but she was denied a place at Kraków University because of sexism i

gown, would serve her for many years as a laboratory outfit. They shared two pastimes: long bicycle trips and journeys abroad, whic

elem

Curie in the la

lts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence, did not depend on an external source of energy but se

eter, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity. Using this technique, her first result was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uraniu

erted shed next to ESPCI. The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof. They were unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure attendant on their

if her earlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small quantities of another substance that was far more active than uranium. She began a systematic search for additional subst

ship of it. She later recorded the fact twice in her biography of her husband to ensure there was no chance of any ambiguity. It [is] likely that already at this early

, and Marie C

tivity (and even a Nobel Prize), would instead have gone to Silvanus Thompson. Curie chose the same rapid means of publication. Her paper, giving a brief and simple account of her work, was presented for her to the Académie on 12 April 1898 by her former professor, G

o the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium." She later would recall how she felt "a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible." On 14 April 1898, the Curies optimistically w

would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires (Russian, Austrian, and Prussian). On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existe

Marie Cur

lonium was the only bismuth-like substance in the ore. Radium, however, was more elusive; it is closely related chemically to barium, and pitchblende contains both elements. By 1898 the Curies had obtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach. The C

f 32 scientific papers, including one that announced that, when exposed to ra

le Supérieure and her husband joined the faculty of the University of P

Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to. Meanwhile,

l Pr

el Prize

el Prize

card as professor at

researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." At first the committee had intended to honor only Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, but a committee member and advocate for women scient

finally undertook the trip in 1905. The award money allowed the Curies to hire their first laboratory assistant. Following the award of the Nobel Prize, and galvanized by an offer from the University of Geneva, which offered Pierre Curie a position, the Universi

e, captioned "Radium", in the Londo

Ève. She hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters he

d killing him instantly. Curie was devastated by her husband's death. On 13 May 1906 the physics department of the University of Paris decided to retain the chair that had been created for her late

r Institute and the University of Paris. The initiative for creating the Radium Institute had come in 1909 from Pierre Paul Émile Roux, director of the Pasteur Institute, who had been disappointed that the University of Paris was not giving Curie a proper lab

) confers with Henri Poincaré; standing nearby are Rutherford (fourth f

11 the French Academy of Sciences failed, by one or two votes, to elect her to membership in the academy. Elected instead was Édouard Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi dev

urie was Jewish. During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press as a foreigner and atheist. Her daughter later remarked on the French press's hypoc

press scandal that was exploited by her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mid-40s) was five years older than Langevin and was misrepresented in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker. When t

el Prize

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." Because of the negative publicity due to her affair with Langevin, the chair of the Nobel committee, Svante Arrhenius, attempted to prevent her attendance at the officia

nue her research in her native country. Curie's second Nobel Prize enabled her to persuade the French government to support the Radium Institute, built in 1914, where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine. A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Pri

ierre-Curie (today rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie). She was appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914. She visited Poland in 1913 and was welcomed in Warsaw b

ld

bile X-ray ve

ogy, anatomy, and automotive mechanics she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, auxiliary generators, and developed mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known as petites Curies ("Little Curies"). She became the director of the Red Cross Radiology Service and set up France's first military radio

She provided the radium from her own one-gram supply. It is estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units. Busy with this work, she carried out very littl

el Prize medals to the war effort but the French National Bank refused to

by sheer laziness I had allowed the money for my second Nobel Prize to remain in Stockholm in Swedish crowns. This is the chief part of what we poss

nce dedicated to the Polish cause. After the war, she summari

war

s Louis Pasteur (1822–95). In 1921, she was welcomed triumphantly when she toured the United States to raise funds for research on radium. M

o was also a supportive wife. Before the meeting, recognising her growing fame abroad, and embarrassed by the fact that she had no French official distinctions to wear in public, the French government offered her a Legion

daughter I

e. Eventually it became one of the world's four major radioactivity-research laboratories, the others being the Cavendish Laboratory, with Ernest Ruth

he wrote a biography of her late husband, titled Pierre Curie. In 1925 she visited Poland to participate in a ceremony laying the foundations for Warsaw's Radium Institute. Her second American tour, in 1929, succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute with radium; the Institute opened in 1932, with her sister Bronisława its director

e

ing the Radium I

d aged 66 at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia believed to

nt light that the substances give off in the dark. Curie was also exposed to X-rays from unshielded equipment while serving as a radiologist in field hospitals during the war. In fact, when Curie's body was exhumed in 1995, the French Office de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants

of both were transferred to the Paris Panthéon. Their remains were sealed in a lead lining because of the radioactivity. She became the second w

en her cookbooks are highly radioactive. Her papers are kept in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to consult them must