Marie Curie

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION Marie Skłodowska Curie was born Maria Skłodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, then under the rule of the Russian Empire and now the capital of Poland. She grew up in a family that valued education, but restrictions on women limited her opportunities for university study at home. In 1891, she moved to Paris to continue her education. She studied at the Sorbonne, earning degrees in physics in 1893 and mathematics in 1894. There she met the physicist Pierre Curie, whom she married in 1895. Their marriage became a close scientific partnership as well as a family life. RESEARCH INTO RADIOACTIVITY Henri Becquerel’s discovery of spontaneous radiation from uranium in 1896 opened a new field of investigation. Curie began measuring this radiation systematically. Her research helped establish radioactivity as a property of certain substances and became the foundation of her doctoral work. Working with Pierre, she investigated pitchblende, an ore whose unusually strong activity suggested that it contained unknown radioactive elements. In 1898, their research led to the announcement of polonium and radium. The name polonium honoured her native Poland. Separating and studying these substances required demanding chemical work with large amounts of material. TWO NOBEL PRIZES In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel for their work on radiation. Marie became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize. After Pierre died in a road accident in 1906, she continued her scientific work and took over his teaching responsibilities at the Sorbonne. She became its first woman professor. In 1911, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her contributions involving radium and polonium, including the isolation and investigation of radium. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes and remains the only person awarded Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry. SCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF MEDICINE Curie helped develop the Radium Institute in Paris, bringing together research on radiation and its biological and medical applications. The institute’s laboratories were completed in 1914, shortly before the First World War. During the war, she helped equip mobile X-ray vehicles and organize radiological services for wounded soldiers. These vehicles became known as little Curies. With her daughter Irène, she also trained personnel in radiological techniques. This work applied existing X-ray technology to urgent medical needs; Curie had not discovered X-rays themselves. LATER YEARS AND LEGACY After the war, Curie continued to lead research, train scientists and seek support for her laboratories. Her work helped connect experimental physics and chemistry with medical research, particularly the investigation of radiation in cancer treatment. She died on July 4, 1934, in Haute-Savoie, France, aged 66. In 1995, her remains and those of Pierre Curie were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. Her career remains a landmark in the history of radioactivity and in the expansion of opportunities for women in science.