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Marie Curie

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Chemists

   CAPTION: Marie Curie

   Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
   Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
         Born        November 7, 1867
                     Warsaw, Poland
         Died        July 4, 1934
                     Sancellemoz, France
      Nationality    Polish- French
         Field       Physicist and chemist
      Institution    Sorbonne
      Alma Mater     Sorbonne and ESPCI
   Doctoral Advisor  Henri Becquerel
   Doctoral 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.
   Married to Pierre Curie (m. 1895), their children include Irène
   Joliot-Curie and Ève Curie.

   Marie Curie ( Polish: Maria Skłodowska-Curie, born Maria Skłodowska,
   also widely known as Madam Curie, 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). She also became the first woman
   appointed to teach at the Sorbonne. She was born a Pole 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 in Warsaw.

Biography

   Born in Warsaw, then under the control of the Russian Empire, her early
   years were sad ones, marked by the death of her sister from typhus, and
   four years later, her mother. She was noted to have an amazing memory
   and a diligent work ethic, neglecting even food and sleep while
   studying. After graduating from high school at the top of her class at
   the age of fifteen she was sent to the countryside to recover. Due to
   her gender and to Russian ( anti-Polish) reprisals following the
   January Uprising she was not allowed admission to any university, so
   she worked as a governess for several years and attended the illegal
   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
   Sorbonne, later becoming the first woman to teach there. Marie
   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.

   At the Sorbonne, she met and married Pierre Curie, another instructor.
   Together they studied radioactive materials, particularly pitchblende,
   the ore from which uranium was extracted, which had the curious
   property of being more radioactive than the uranium extracted from it.
   By 1898 they deduced that the pitchblende must contain traces of an
   unknown radioactive component far more radioactive than uranium: on
   December 26th Marie Curie announced the existence of this new
   substance.

   Over several years of unceasing labour they refined several tons of
   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.
   Maria Skłodowska Curie's Nobel Prize Diploma
   Enlarge
   Maria Skłodowska Curie's Nobel Prize Diploma

   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 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.
   A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, Marie was hospitalized
   with depression and kidney trouble. Whenever she was feeling especially
   depressed she took a trip to the country to relax.

   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 2006 she remains the only
   woman to win two Nobel prizes.
   Dołęga Coat of Arms
   Enlarge
   Dołęga Coat of Arms

   After her husband's death from a street accident, she supposedly had an
   affair with physicists Zack Jewett and Paul Langevin, both married men
   who had left their wives, which resulted in a press scandal, taken
   advantage of by her academic opponents to damage her credibility.
   Despite her fame as an honored scientist working for France, the
   public's attitude to the scandal tended towards xenophobia — she was a
   foreigner born to a genteel family ( Dołęga-Sklodowski) from a
   little-known land (Poland was still referred to as a geographical area,
   under the Russian Tsar), an area known to have a significant Jewish
   population (although raised as a Roman Catholic, a faith which she
   later abandoned). 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 Langevin's
   grandson Michel later married her granddaughter Hélène Langevin-Joliot.

   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. 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. Promptly after the war started, she
   donated her and her husband's gold Nobel Prize Medals for the war
   effort.

   In 1921, she toured the United States, where she was welcomed
   triumphantly, to raise funds for research on radium.

   In her later years, she was disappointed by the many physicians and
   makers of cosmetics who used radioactive material without precautions.
   Historical 20 000 złoty banknote of Poland with face of Maria
   Skłodowska Curie
   Enlarge
   Historical 20 000 złoty banknote of Poland with face of Maria
   Skłodowska Curie
   Plate commemorating Marie Sklodowska-Curie's first scientific endeavors
   in Ulica Krakowskie Przedmiescie in Warsaw.
   Enlarge
   Plate commemorating Marie Sklodowska-Curie's first scientific endeavors
   in Ulica Krakowskie Przedmiescie in Warsaw.

   Her death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anaemia, almost
   certainly due to massive exposure to radiation—much of her work had
   been carried out in a shed with no safety measures being taken, as the
   damaging effects of hard radiation were not yet known. She carried test
   tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in
   her desk drawer, resulting in massive exposure to radiation. She
   remarked on the pretty blue-green light the substances gave off in the
   dark.

   She was initially buried at the cemetery in Sceaux where Pierre lay,
   but in 1995 their ashes were transferred to the Panthéon to honour
   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)

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). A unit of radioactivity, the Curie (symbol
   Ci), is named in their honour.

   Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon starred in the 1943 U. S.
   Oscar-nominated film based on her life.

   An extremely historical Marie (Manya or Manyusya as it was when she was
   born) Curie appears as a character in the 1988 comedy Young Einstein by
   Yahoo Serious.

   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 honour of her and Pierre.

   Pierre and Marie Curie University, the largest science, technology, and
   medicine university in France, and a successor institution to the
   faculty of science of the University of Paris, where she taught, was
   named in honour of her and Pierre. The university is home to the
   laboratory where they discovered Radium.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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