Pierre Curie, born on 15 May 1859 in
Paris,
France, and was
educated with his brother at home by his parents. He then studied
physics at the
Sorbonne. Pierre discovered that exerting
pressure on
quartz crystals could produce an
electric current.
Curies Law is named after his later discovery about the relationship between
magnetism and
temperature.
Marie Curie, born
Manya Sklodowska in
Warsaw,
Poland on 7 November 1867.
French physicist and twice
Nobel Prize winner. She was best known for her work on
radioactivity with her husband Pierre.
Marie’s father was an ardent
Polish nationalist who taught
mathematics and
physics at a
secondary school. She had a sister; Bronia. During her schooling she won a gold medal of excellence and graduated from high school at the age of 15. Because of a poor family she went to work as a
Governess at 17. In 1891 Marie travelled to
Paris with her sister and registered at
Sorbonne, in the
University of Paris to study
Maths and
Physics, earning
degrees in both. Her name was then changed to Marie. Within two years she completed the masters exam in physics and scored the highest in the class.
Three years after Marie arrived in Paris, she met Pierre the
physicist, her husband to be. Within a year they married and moved into an apartment near where they shared a
laboratory. After the discovery of
X-rays and the emission of novel radiations from
Uranium they concentrated on whether there were any other
elements that produced these
rays.
Her first daughter, Irene, was born in 1897. By 1898 using a device invented by Pierre, she discovered that
Pitchblende – an
ore containing
uranium – was far more
radioactive than the uranium inside it was.
Over the next few years Marie and Pierre made several important discoveries. They were first to prove that the
atoms of some elements are continually
breaking down and give off radiations that pass through many other materials.
The Curies called these
radioactive. The next discovery was the hidden elements in Pitchblende -
Polonium and
Radium, a
glowing element which they finally isolated in 1902. In 1903 the Curies were jointly awarded with
Antoine Becquerel the
Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of
radioactive elements.
Pierre was killed in 1906 in a
road accident. Marie then took over his job and became the first female to teach at Sorbonne. She continued her work and introduced the terms “
disintegration” and “
transmutation” into physics. 1911 came and she won the Nobel Prize for
chemistry and was the first person to win two prizes in
science.
During
world war one Madam Curie had an active role in the use of radiation for
medical purposes. She used her fame to promote the medical uses of radium by helping the foundation of
radium therapy institutes.
While working on the isolation of a new element her health
deteriorated. She had several
cataract operations. As a consequence of Marie's exposure to massive doses of radiation for a long period of time, she died of
aplastic anaemia in an alpine
sanatorium.