Marie Curie Skłodowska (7 نوفمبر 1867 - 1934, يوليو 4), a physicist and chemist to sex education, French, Polish suffix. Was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, and the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes [1] in the physics and chemistry. It was also the first woman professor at the University of Paris.

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw (then in the land Vistula, the Russian Empire, and now in Poland), and lived there until she was 24. In 1891, followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she received her higher degree, and held subsequent scientific work. And established institutes Curie in Paris and Warsaw. Sharing her husband Pierre Curie the Nobel Prize in physics. Her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and son in law, Frederic Joliot-Curie, shared the Nobel Prize as well.

Her achievements include the establishment of the theory of radioactivity (a term that they were drafted), and techniques for the isolation of radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. Under her guidance, and studies were carried out first in the world in the treatment of malignant neoplasms (cancer) by using radioactive isotopes.

While actively loyal French citizen, said she had not lost her sense of Polish identity. She named the first elements of new chemicals that discovered polonium (1898) for her native country, [3]), were in 1932 founded the Institute for Radium (now Skłodowska - Maria Curie Institute of Oncology) in her home town, Warsaw, headed by the sister of her doctor Bronisława.

Early Life

Muscat ulica Freta in Warsaw in the “new city”. The building now SkÅ‚odowska - Maria Curie Museum.
Father with his daughters (from left) Maria, Bronisława, Helena

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867, and the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers and Bronisława Skłodowski Władysław. And older siblings Maria Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865), and Helena (1866).

His grandfather, Maria Józef Skłodowski was the teacher respected in Lublin, where he was studying youth Boleslaw Prus [4] Her father Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics, physics and materials that Maria was to follow, and was also director of sports halls Warsaw, two for boys, in addition to providing children in the family home . Working mother, Bronisława, and rise Warsaw prestigious school for girls. She suffered from tuberculosis and died when he was 12, Maria.

It was Maria’s father is an atheist and her mother, a devout Catholic. Two years ago, the oldest brother of Maria, Zofia, died of typhus. The death of her mother and sister, according to Robert William Reid, Maria to give up their Catholic faith and became an agnostic.

When she was ten years old, Maria began to attend boarding school that her mother while she was working as well; Maria following attended the gymnasium for girls, who graduated on June 12, 1883. She spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, the next day with her father in Warsaw, where some private lessons.

On both sides, the father and mother, and the family lost their property and wealth through the involvement of American national uprisings in the Polish National. It also condemned that each generation later, including Maria, her sisters, the largest, and a brother to the conflict is difficult to move forward in life.

In the laboratory here, in 1890-1891, did not work the first scientific Skłodowska.

Maria Maria took was agreed with her sister, BronisÅ‚awa, it will provide them financial assistance during BronisÅ‚awa medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later. [8] In this regard, the post of nanny: first with a family lawyer in Krakow, and then for two years in Ciechanów with the family fell, and Å»orawskis, who were relatives of her father. While he was working for the latter’s family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Å»orawski, which was reciprocated by the eminent mathematician of this future. His parents, however, rejected the idea of marriage has a relatively penniless, and Kazimierz is unable to intercept them. Maria lost her position as governess. I found another family with Fox in Sopot, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, where she spent the next year, all the while financially assisting her sister.
Elderly Żorawski

At the beginning of 1890, BronisÅ‚awa, a few months after I got married Kazimierz DÅ‚uski, invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria refused because she could not afford the tuition at universities and was counting on marriage is still Kazimierz Å»orawski. And returned to her father’s house in Warsaw, where he remained until the fall of 1891. She studied and studied at the University of floating secret, and began her practice in the scientific laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture in PrzedmieÅ›cie Krakowskie 66 years), near the Old City in Warsaw. This lab was run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who was assistant in St. Petersburg the great chemist Dmitri Mendeleev.

In October 1891, at the insistence of her sister, and after receiving a letter from Żorawski, which finally broke his relationship with her, and decided to go to France after all.

Maria was the loss of the relationship with the tragic Żorawski alike. Received a doctorate degree in the shortest time and continued the practice of academic work and the world of mathematics, and became a professor and rector of the University of Krakow, president of the Warsaw to learn. Established, however, as the old man and a professor of mathematics at the College of Applied Arts in Warsaw, he will sit before the statue of meditative Skłodowska Maria, which was in 1935 by the Institute of Radium, which was established in 1932.

In Paris, and Maria briefly found shelter with her sister and brother in law before renting the attic primitive and the initiation of the study of physics and chemistry, and mathematics at the Sorbonne (University of Paris).

Sorbonne University

Pierre Curie

Skłodowska studied during the day and evening lesson, earns barely keep her. In 1893 and won a degree in physics and began working in industrial laboratories in the Lipman. In the meantime, she continued studying at the Sorbonne, in 1894, he earned a doctorate in mathematics.

In the same year Pierre Curie entered her life. The school teacher of physics and chemistry, and École Supérieure Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI). A Skłodowska started her scientific career in Paris in an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels, it was their mutual interest in magnetism that drew Skłodowska and Corey together.

Leaving for the summer to strengthen the Warsaw only mutual feelings for each other. She said she is still laboring under the illusion that they will be able to return to Poland and work in this field choose to study. When she was denied a place at the University of Krakow, just because it is a woman, however, returned to Paris. Almost one year later, in July 1895, married Pierre Curie, and then two physicists hardly ever leave their own laboratories. They shared in the two hobbies, bicycle trips and long trips abroad, which brought them closer. Maria was found a new love, a partner, and it was scientific collaborator can be stopped.

New members

In 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays, like X-ray penetration in the power of their own. He demonstrated that this radiation, in contrast to phosphorescence, do not depend on external sources of energy, but it seems to arise automatically from the uranium itself. Bq was, in fact, discovered radioactivity.

Skłodowska Curie decided to consider the possible rays of uranium as a field of research for a thesis. She used a clever technique to investigate the samples. Fifteen years earlier, and her husband and his brother invented the electrometer, a sensitive device for measuring electric charge. Using the electrometer Corey, I discovered that the rays of uranium caused the air around the sample for electricity.Using this technique, a result of which was the first to conclude that the activity of uranium compounds depends only on the amount of uranium present. She has shown that the radiation was not the result of the interaction of certain molecules, but must come from the corn itself. In scientific terms, this was the most important single piece of work which she conducted.

Studies included in the methodology Skłodowska Curie uranium metal two, Pitchblende torbernite (also known as chalcolite). Showed that the author electrometer Pitchblende was four times the active uranium itself, and twice chalcolite active. She concluded that if her earlier findings regarding the quantity of uranium to operate was correct, then those miners must contain small amounts of some other materials that were more active than uranium itself.

And [the idea of writing Reid] was her, and no one helped her to formulate, and although it took on her husband for his opinion clearly that they have ownership of it. It was recorded later in the fact that twice in her autobiography of her husband to ensure that there is no chance whatever of any ambiguity. Is likely that already at this early stage of her career [they] realized that … Many scientists find it difficult to believe that women can be capable of original work which it had participated.

Systematic in their search for other items next to the uranium salts that radiation emitted, and was Skłodowska Curie, and found that the element thorium Similarly, the radioactive material.

Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris to the laboratory, before 1907

She is fully aware of the importance of disseminating its findings expeditiously and thus put a priority. Bq did two years ago, the discovery of the Academy of Sciences on the day after he made it, had gone credited with the discovery of radioactivity, and even a Nobel prize, the Silvanus Thompson instead. Skłodowska Curie chose the same means of rapid deployment. And presented a paper, and give a brief description and simple to work, and it Académie in April 12, 1898 by her former Gabriel Lippmann.

Even so, just as they were beaten by Thomson Bq, so beaten Skłodowska Curie in a race to tell her that the discovery of thorium gives off radiation in the same manner in which uranium. Two months ago, and Gerhard Schmidt to publish the facts for himself in Berlin.

At that time, however, no one else in the world of physics and noticed SkÅ‚odowska Curie recorded in the phrase of the paper, describing how much more of the activities of Pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: “It really is very impressive, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element of which is more active than uranium. “and said it would pull out at a later time for a sense of” passionate desire to verify this hypothesis in as soon as possible. “

Pierre Curie was sure that what they discovered, had no effect false. He was so intrigued that he decided to give up his work on crystals temporarily and to join them. On April 14, 1898 that it weight with optimism to a sample of 100 grams of Pitchblende and land it with a pestle and mortar. They do not realize at the time what they were looking for was present in those exact amounts they ultimately will have to process tons of raw material.

Because they were not aware of the adverse effects associated with radiation exposure for their work unprotected with chronic radioactive materials, was Skłodowska Curie and her husband no idea what the price to be paid to the impact of research on health.

Pierre, Irene, Marie Curie

In July 1898, published SkÅ‚odowska Curie and her husband and paper together, and announced that the item that is named “polonium” in honor of her native Poland, which for twenty years, the other is still divided between the three empires. On December 26, 1898 Currie announced a second element, which is called “radium” to its high radioactivity - a word that was coined.

Pitchblende metal complex. The separation between the constituent chemicals have a daunting task. Polonium was discovered relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bismuth, and polonium were only bismuth are similar in crude. Radium, however, was more difficult. And closely related, chemically, to the barium, and contains all the elements Pitchblende. Prior to 1898 was obtained by the effects of Curie radium, but significant amounts, but contaminated with barium, is still elusive.

Currie pledged to the arduous task of separating salt from radium by differential crystallization. A ton of Pitchblende, were separated and one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride in 1902. In 1910, Skłodowska Curie, without the action of her husband, who was killed accidentally in 1906, was able to isolate pure radium metal.

In an unusual decision, Marie Curie, Skłodowska deliberately abstained from the process of patenting radium and isolation, so that it can do scientific research without hindrance.

In 1903, under the supervision of Henri Becquerel, and the DSC-Marie gave her from the University of Paris.
Nobel Prizes
1911 image of Maria Curie Skłodowska for her second Nobel Prize was awarded in Chemistry

In 1903, was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Pierre Curie, Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, “in recognition of extraordinary services made by the research involved in the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.”

And Skłodowska Curie and her husband is unable to go to Stockholm to receive the award personally, but they shared the proceeds with the knowledge of financial need, including students.

To get the Nobel Prize, Marie Curie, Pierre suddenly became very famous. The Sorbonne-Pierre in his professorship, and allowed him to create his own laboratory, which has become Skłodowska Curie, director of research.

In 1897 and 1904, respectively, gave birth to Skłodowska Curie daughters, Irene Curie Eve. She was hired later in the Polish governesses to teach their daughters to their original language, and send or take them to visit Poland.

Maria Skłodowska Curie in 1911 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry Diploma

SkÅ‚odowska Curie was the first woman awarded the Nobel Prize. Eight years later, she would receive the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, “in recognition of services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of radium and polonium elements, by isolating radium and studying the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.”

A month after accepting her Nobel Prize, 1911, she was hospitalized with depression and kidney disease.

Skłodowska Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. It is one of only two people who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in two different areas, and the other person to Linus Pauling (chemistry and peace). To be elected in spite of this, in 1911 the French Academy of Sciences refused to abandon their prejudices against women, and it failed by two votes of the members. And instead elected Edouard Branly, the inventor Guglielmo Marconi, who helped develop the wireless telegraph. [27]) and will be a doctoral student from Skłodowska, Corey, Margaret Perey, which will become the first woman to be elected a member of the Academy - more than half a century later, in 1962.

Pierre’s death

On April 19, 1906, Pierre was killed in a street. He was walking across the street Crown torrential rains, he was struck by a car pulled by horses and fell under the wheels, a broken skull. In the time that had been reported earlier that may have been weakened by exposure to radiation for long periods, it did not prove that this is the cause of the accident.

SkÅ‚odowska Curie and destroyed by the death of her husband. She pointed out that from that moment she suddenly became the “suffering of the incurably lonely miserable person.” On May 13, 1906 in the Department of Physics, University of Sorbonne, decided to keep the seat that had been created by Pierre Curie and they entrusted the SkÅ‚odowska Curie, along with the full authority over the laboratory. This allowed her to get out of the shadows Pierre. She became the first woman to become a professor at the University of Sorbonne, and the system of hard work that it sought the meaning of life.

Paul Langevin in life at a later time

Growing recognition for its work to new heights, and in 1911 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry. He encouraged the delegation of the celebrated Polish men of learning, which is chaired by world-renowned novelist, Henryk Sienkiewicz, to return to Poland and further discussed in the country of origin.

In 1911, it was revealed that during the 1910-1911 Skłodowska Curie had affair of about one year with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student at Curie.He Pierre was a married man, who was separated from his wife. This led to a scandal that the press was being used by opponents of the Academy. Despite the fame and the world of work for France, public opinion tends towards xenophobia, are the same that led to the Dreyfus affairs that fuel has also been speculation false Skłodowska Curie was a Jew. She was five years older than was portrayed in the Langevin and newspapers as wrecker.Later House, the granddaughter of Skłodowska, Corey, Helen Julio, he married a grandson of Langevin, Michel Langevin.

Enable SkÅ‚odowska Curie’s second Nobel Prize, in 1911, to speak the French government in financing the construction of the Institute of Radium’s (Institute de Radium, and now in the Institut Curie), which was built in 1914 and conducted research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. The Institute has become the crucible of Nobel laureates, and produces four others, including her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and son in law, Frederic Joliot-Curie.

The First World War

During World War I, SkÅ‚odowska Curie pushed for the use of mobile units rays, which came to be known as domestic Currie (”Little Corey”), to treat wounded soldiers. And these units were powered using tubes of radium emanation, a colorless, radioactive gas emitted from radium, which was identified later as radon. Provided SkÅ‚odowska Curie of radium tubes, drawn from the material is purification. Also, promptly after the war began, it donated to the Nobel Prize was awarded gold medals and her husband, in the war effort.
Post-war years

In 1921, and welcomed the Skłodowska Curie victorious when he toured in the United States to raise funds for research on radium. The cause of the deviations of the labors with the scientific and hype, and discomfort with too much, but the resources available for its functioning. The second U.S. tour in 1929 succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute, which was founded in 1925 with her sister, Bronisława, a manager.

In her years later, he went Skłodowska Curie at the Pasteur Institute and the Laboratory Radiation her creation of the University of Paris.
Death
1935 statue, facing the Radium Institute, Warsaw

Died Skłodowska Curie Curie Skłodowska - visited Poland last time in the spring of 1934.Only couple months later. It was her death on July 4, 1934 in a sanitarium Sancellemoz in Passy, in the Haute-Savoie, eastern France, aplastic anemia, almost certainly contracted from exposure to radiation. The harmful effects of ionizing radiation and does not know, had been carried out much of its business in the attic, without taking any safety measures. She carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored in the drawer of her office, and noted in the light of a beautiful green and blue that the material gave the player in the dark.

She was interred in the cemetery at seals, side by side with her husband Pierre. Sixty years later, in 1995, in honor of its accomplishments, the remaining were transferred to Paris Panthéon. She became the first - and so far the only - woman to be honored in this way.

Her laboratory is kept at the Museum of Korea.

By the levels of radioactivity, and leaves from the 1890s is very dangerous to handle. Until you have a cookbook high radiation. And continued to lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to be informed and must wear protective clothing.

And contributed to the physical and social aspects of the work of Currie significant in shaping the world of the twentieth and twenty-atheist. Cornell University Professor L. Pierce Williams notes:

The result of the work of Curry making a new era. The radioactivity of radium were so great that can not be ignored. It seems to be incompatible with the principle of conservation of energy and therefore forced to reconsider the foundations of physics. Pilot-scale discovery of radium gave men such as Ernest Rutherford with sources of radiation that can achieve the structure of atoms. As a result of Rutherford’s experiments with alpha radiation, and was first postulated and maize nuclear weapons. In medicine, and it seems that the radioactivity of radium to provide the means by which cancer can be successfully attacked.