Marie Curie 1867-1934
Marie Curie 1867-1934
Marie Curie 1867-1934
TUYOUYOU
It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted
to know in all liberty.
MARIE CURIE
MARIAGOEPPERT MAYER
IRÈNEJOLIOT-CURIE
IRÈNEJOLIOT-CURIE
[Pierre] had dedicated his life to his dream of science: he felt the need of a companion
who could live his dream with him.
MARIE CURIE
Marie Curie and her daughters, Irène and Eve, 1908 Daily Herald Archive/Science
Museum Group/SSPL © Mirrorpix
Marie and Pierre Curie with their daughter Irène in the garden of the house on
Boulevard Kellermann, 1908 Science Museum Group (CC by 4.0)
The couple had two daughters, Irène and Eve, and a few years after they married,
Pierre Curie abandoned his own research to join his wife’s study of radioactivity. The
Curies’ affair of the heart and mind ended tragically not long after Eve was born. In
1906, Pierre Curie was run over by a horse and carriage and killed.
IRÈNEJOLIOT-CURIE
Marie Curie visiting a British field hospital, Furnes, Belgium, 1915 Photo by
Historia/REX
Curie believed scientific research was a public good and championed its utility. She and
her husband had discovered that radium destroyed diseased cells faster than healthy
cells, and thus that radiation could be used to treat tumours.
IRÈNEJOLIOT-CURIE
ADA E.YONATH
One of Marie Curie’s mobile x-ray units used by the French Army Bibliothèque nationale
de France, département Estampes et photographie
IRÈNEJOLIOT-CURIE
The Curies did not fully appreciate the danger of the radioactive materials they handled.
Pierre Curie gave himself a lesion when he purposely exposed his arm to radium.
Worse, however, was working for years in a poorly ventilated shed, isolating radium
salts from tons of pitchblende ore.
The room where experiments on uranium ore took place - the laboratories of Marie and
Pierre Curie, Paris, ca. 1900 Wellcome Collection (CC by 4.0)
Marie Curie in her chemistry laboratory at the Radium Institute in France © Nationaal
Archief of the Netherlands
I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.
MARIE CURIE
Marie and Pierre Curie's thank you letter to the Royal Swedish Academy of
Science (page 1), 19 November 1903 © The Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences. Photo: Karl Andersson
Marie Curie was a Polish-born physicist and chemist and one of the most famous scientists
of her time. Together with her husband Pierre, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903,
and she went on to win another in 1911.
Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw on 7 November 1867, the daughter of a teacher. In
1891, she went to Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne where she met
Pierre Curie, professor of the School of Physics. They were married in 1895.
The Curies worked together investigating radioactivity, building on the work of the German
physicist Roentgen and the French physicist Becquerel. In July 1898, the Curies announced
the discovery of a new chemical element, polonium. At the end of the year, they announced
the discovery of another, radium. The Curies, along with Becquerel, were awarded the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.
Pierre's life was cut short in 1906 when he was knocked down and killed by a carriage.
Marie took over his teaching post, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne, and
devoted herself to continuing the work that they had begun together. She received a second
Nobel Prize, for Chemistry, in 1911.
The Curie's research was crucial in the development of x-rays in surgery. During World War
One Curie helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, which she herself drove to the
front lines. The International Red Cross made her head of its radiological service and she
held training courses for medical orderlies and doctors in the new techniques.
Despite her success, Marie continued to face great opposition from male scientists in
France, and she never received significant financial benefits from her work. By the late
1920s her health was beginning to deteriorate. She died on 4 July 1934 from leukaemia,
caused by exposure to high-energy radiation from her research. The Curies' eldest daughter
Irene was herself a scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.