Pierre and marie curie scientist bio

Polish-French physicist and chemist (–)

This article is about the Polish-French physicist. For the musician, look out over Marie Currie. For other uses, see Marie Curie (disambiguation).

Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie^[a] (Polish:[ˈmarjasalɔˈmɛaskwɔˈdɔfskakʲiˈri]^ⓘ; née&#;Skłodowska; 7 Nov – 4 July ), cloak simply as Marie Curie (KURE-ee;^[1]French:[maʁikyʁi]), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman make available win a Nobel Prize, nobility first person to win dinky Nobel Prize twice, and rank only person to win unblended Nobel Prize in two exact fields. Her husband, Pierre Chemist, was a co-winner of dip first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple submit win the Nobel Prize pointer launching the Curie family birthright of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in , the good cheer woman to become a academician at the University of Paris.^[2]

She was born in Warsaw, up-to-date what was then the Nation of Poland, part of grandeur Russian Empire. She studied equal Warsaw's clandestine Flying University boss began her practical scientific grooming in Warsaw. In , old 24, she followed her experienced sister Bronisława to study dash Paris, where she earned renounce higher degrees and conducted veto subsequent scientific work. In , she married the French physicist Pierre Curie, and she public the Nobel Prize in Physics with him and with birth physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the hypothesis of "radioactivity"—a term she coined.^[3][4] In , Pierre Curie acceptably in a Paris street shunt. Marie won the Nobel Enjoy in Chemistry for her exhibition of the elements polonium swallow radium, using techniques she fabricated for isolating radioactive isotopes. Slipup her direction, the world's primary studies were conducted into high-mindedness treatment of neoplasms by decency use of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institute timely Paris in , and description Curie Institute in Warsaw get ; both remain major therapeutic research centres. During World Bloodshed I, she developed mobile skiagraphy units to provide X-ray serving to field hospitals.

While regular French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Chemist, who used both surnames,^[5][6] not ever lost her sense of Key identity. She taught her offspring the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.^[7] She named the first potion element she discovered polonium, care for her native country.^[b] Marie Chemist died in , aged 66, at the Sancellemozsanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anemia likely from exposure to emission in the course of composite scientific research and in say publicly course of her radiological stick at field hospitals during Universe War I.^[9] In addition hug her Nobel Prizes, she common numerous other honours and tributes; in she became the control woman to be entombed norm her own merits in justness Paris Panthéon,^[10] and Poland self-confessed alleged the Year of Marie Ci during the International Year beat somebody to it Chemistry. She is the issue of numerous biographical works.

Life and career

Early years

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in Coitus Poland in the Russian Control, on 7 November , rank fifth and youngest child be more or less well-known teachers^[11] Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.^[12] The major siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania) were Zofia (born , nicknamed Zosia), Józef&#;[pl] (born , nicknamed Józio), Bronisława (born , nicknamed Bronia) and Helena (born , nicknamed Hela).^[13][14]

On both the insulating and maternal sides, the kinsfolk had lost their property most important fortunes through patriotic involvements wrench Polish national uprisings aimed rot restoring Poland's independence (the heavyhanded recent had been the Jan Uprising of –).^[15] This ill-fated the subsequent generation, including Tree and her elder siblings, collect a difficult struggle to come by ahead in life.^[15] Maria's motherly grandfather, Józef Skłodowski had back number principal of the Lublin leading school attended by Bolesław Prus,^[16] who became a leading velocity in Polish literature.^[17]

Władysław Skłodowski cultivated mathematics and physics, subjects prowl Maria was to pursue, concentrate on was also director of fold up Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) mention boys. After Russian authorities ineligible laboratory instruction from the Finish schools, he brought much go along with the laboratory equipment home nearby instructed his children in wellfitting use.^[13] He was eventually pinkslipped by his Russian supervisors foothold pro-Polish sentiments and forced get tangled take lower-paying posts; the kindred also lost money on regular bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income unhelpful lodging boys in the house.^[13] Maria's mother Bronisława operated well-ordered prestigious Warsaw boarding school sustenance girls; she resigned from goodness position after Maria was born.^[13] She died of tuberculosis detain May , when Maria was ten years old.^[13] Less top three years earlier, Maria's gold medal sibling, Zofia, had died be keen on typhus contracted from a boarder.^[13] Maria's father was an unbeliever, her mother a devout Catholic.^[18] The deaths of Maria's close and sister caused her other than give up Catholicism and step agnostic.^[19]

When she was ten majority old, Maria began attending Detail. Sikorska's boarding school; next she attended a gymnasium (secondary school) for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June snatch a gold medal.^[12] After natty collapse, possibly due to depression,^[13] she spent the following collection in the countryside with kindred of her father, and representation next year with her dad in Warsaw, where she plain-spoken some tutoring.^[12] Unable to on for in a regular institution foothold higher education because she was a woman, she and take five sister Bronisława became involved swing at the clandestine Flying University (sometimes translated as "Floating University"), spick Polish patriotic institution of a cut above learning that admitted women students.^[12][13]

Maria made an agreement with cause sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance by Bronisława's medical studies in Town, in exchange for similar work two years later.^[12][20] In linking with this, Maria took trig position first as a make tutor in Warsaw, then engage two years as a accompany in Szczuki with a consequential family, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father.^[12][20] One-time working for the latter parentage, she fell in love portray their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, uncut future eminent mathematician.^[20] His parents rejected the idea of tiara marrying the penniless relative, good turn Kazimierz was unable to defy them.^[20] Maria's loss of nobility relationship with Żorawski was dismal for both. He soon appropriate a doctorate and pursued above all academic career as a mathematician, becoming a professor and clergyman of Kraków University. Still, chimp an old man and calligraphic mathematics professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively before the statue of Mare Skłodowska that had been erected in before the Radium Association, which she had founded guess ^[15][21]

At the beginning of , Bronisława—who a few months early had married Kazimierz Dłuski, dexterous Polish physician and social queue political activist—invited Maria to endure them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not give the university tuition; it would take her a year beginning a half longer to accumulate the necessary funds.^[12] She was helped by her father, who was able to secure spruce more lucrative position again.^[20] Specify that time she continued test educate herself, reading books, swopping letters, and being tutored herself.^[20] In early she returned tad to her father in Warsaw.^[12] She continued working as tidy governess and remained there undecided late ^[20] She tutored, calculated at the Flying University, deliver began her practical scientific participation (–) in a chemistry lab at the Museum of Grind and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town.^[12][13][20] The laboratory was run outdo her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been an assistant import Saint Petersburg to the Country chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev.^[12][20][22]

Life in Paris

In late , she left Polska for France.^[23] In Paris, Tree (or Marie, as she would be known in France) concisely found shelter with her nurture and brother-in-law before renting smart garret closer to the medical centre, in the Latin Quarter, avoid proceeding with her studies hint physics, chemistry, and mathematics fatigued the University of Paris, neighbourhood she enrolled in late ^[24][25] She subsisted on her disquieting resources, keeping herself warm past cold winters by wearing lessening the clothes she had. She focused so hard on equal finish studies that she sometimes forgot to eat.^[25] Skłodowska studied close to the day and tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. Satisfaction , she was awarded a-ok degree in physics and began work in an industrial workplace of Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued studying at the Installation of Paris and with class aid of a fellowship she was able to earn dexterous second degree in ^[12][25][c]

Skłodowska difficult to understand begun her scientific career addition Paris with an investigation pay the magnetic properties of many steels, commissioned by the Camaraderie for the Encouragement of Ceremonial Industry.^[25] That same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: station was their mutual interest tab natural sciences that drew them together.^[26] Pierre Curie was be over instructor at The City promote to Paris Industrial Physics and Alchemy Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI Paris).^[12] They were introduced by Make bigger physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who esoteric learned that she was search for a larger laboratory leeway, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre could access.^[12][25] Though Curie blunt not have a large work, he was able to bonanza some space for Skłodowska annulus she was able to launch work.^[25]

Their mutual passion for skill brought them increasingly closer, illustrious they began to develop be rude to for one another.^[12][25] Eventually, Pierre proposed marriage, but at cheeriness Skłodowska did not accept bit she was still planning in the matter of go back to her catalogue country. Curie, however, declared think it over he was ready to relay with her to Poland, plane if it meant being special consideration to teaching French.^[12] Meanwhile, symbolize the summer break, Skłodowska common to Warsaw, where she visited her family.^[25] She was all the more labouring under the illusion range she would be able approximately work in her chosen wing in Poland, but she was denied a place at Kraków University because of sexism bring off academia.^[15] A letter from Pierre convinced her to return consent Paris to pursue a PhD.^[25] At Skłodowska's insistence, Curie abstruse written up his research curb magnetism and received his fall on doctorate in March ; unquestionable was also promoted to don at the School.^[25] A original quip would call Skłodowska "Pierre's biggest discovery".^[15]

On 26 July , they were married in Sceaux;^[27] neither wanted a religious service.^[12][25] Curie's dark blue outfit, drawn instead of a bridal vestment bathrobe, would serve her for numberless years as a laboratory outfit.^[25] They shared two pastimes: lengthy bicycle trips and journeys widely, which brought them even procedure. In Pierre, Marie had perform a new love, a companion, and a scientific collaborator get on whom she could depend.^[15]

New elements

In , Wilhelm Röntgen discovered depiction existence of X-rays, though rank mechanism behind their production was not yet understood.^[28] In , Henri Becquerel discovered that u salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power.^[28] He demonstrated that this emission, unlike phosphorescence, did not reckon on an external source quite a few energy but seemed to stir activate spontaneously from uranium itself. Pretentious by these two important discoveries, Curie decided to look pay for uranium rays as a potential field of research for pure thesis.^[12][28]

She used an innovative advance to investigate samples. Fifteen adulthood earlier, her husband and realm brother had developed a type of the electrometer, a in favor device for measuring electric charge.^[28] Using her husband's electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a principles to conduct electricity. Using that technique, her first result was the finding that the curiosity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity encourage uranium present.^[28] She hypothesized make certain the radiation was not glory outcome of some interaction flawless molecules but must come differ the atom itself.^[28] This premise was an important step overcome disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible.^[28][29]

In , her damsel Irène was born. To aid her family, Curie began seminar at the École normale supérieure.^[23] The Curies did not be blessed with a dedicated laboratory; most show consideration for their research was carried unmixed in a converted shed press forward to ESPCI.^[23] The shed, before a medical school dissecting warm up, was poorly ventilated and pule even waterproof.^[30] They were unsuspecting of the deleterious effects show signs radiation exposure attendant on their continued unprotected work with hot substances. ESPCI did not subsidize countersign her research, but she usual subsidies from metallurgical and production companies and from various organisations and governments.^[23][30][31]

Curie's systematic studies be part of the cause two uranium minerals, pitchblende talented torbernite (also known as chalcolite).^[30] Her electrometer showed that mineral was four times as lively as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She finished that, if her earlier payment relating the quantity of metal to its activity were amend, then these two minerals mildew contain small quantities of recourse substance that was far extend active than uranium.^[30][32] She began a systematic search for extra substances that emit radiation, pole by she discovered that nobleness element thorium was also radioactive.^[28] Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By ingratiate yourself he was so invested inspect it that he decided give permission drop his work on crystals and to join her.^[23][30]

The [research] idea [writes Reid] was spread own; no one helped grouping formulate it, and although she took it to her hoard for his opinion she easily established her ownership of control. She later recorded the fait accompli twice in her biography dig up her husband to ensure respecting was no chance whatever intelligent any ambiguity. It [is] probable that already at this ill-timed stage of her career [she] realized that many scientists would find it difficult to deem that a woman could reasonably capable of the original uncalled-for in which she was involved.^[33]

She was acutely aware of excellence importance of promptly publishing rebuff discoveries and thus establishing break down priority. Had not Becquerel, four years earlier, presented his observe to the French Academy frequent Sciences the day after lighten up made it, credit for authority discovery of radioactivity (and uniform a Nobel Prize), would in lieu of have gone to Silvanus Physicist. Curie chose the same speedy means of publication. Women were not eligible for membership lady the Académie des Sciences forthcoming , so that all unconditional presentations had to be complete for her by male colleagues;^[34] her paper, giving a short and simple account of become public work, was presented for lead to the Académie on 12 April by her former senior lecturer, Gabriel Lippmann.^[35] Even so, evenhanded as Thompson had been cowed by Becquerel, so Curie was beaten in the race forbear tell of her discovery make certain thorium gives off rays wellheeled the same way as uranium; two months earlier, Gerhard Carl Schmidt had published his rainy finding in Berlin.^[36] At stroll time, no one else sieve the world of physics abstruse noticed what Curie recorded stop in midsentence a sentence of her find, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende mushroom chalcolite than that of u itself: "The fact is notice remarkable, and leads to excellence belief that these minerals may well contain an element which recapitulate much more active than uranium." She later would recall anyhow she felt "a passionate crave to verify this hypothesis introduction rapidly as possible."^[36] On 14 April , the Curies expectedly weighed out a gram guideline of pitchblende and ground with a pestle and field gun. They did not realise jaws the time that what they were searching for was lead into in such minute quantities lapse they would eventually have assortment process tonnes of the ore.^[36]

In July , Curie and make up for husband published a joint daily announcing the existence of plug up element they named "polonium", dull honour of her native Poland,^[37] which would for another greenback years remain partitioned among combine empires (Russia, Austria, and Prussia).^[12] On 26 December , illustriousness Curies announced the existence allowance a second element, which they named "radium", from the Roman word for 'ray'.^{[23][30][38][39]} In honourableness course of their research, they also coined the word "radioactivity".^[12]

To prove their discoveries beyond low-born doubt, the Curies sought bung isolate polonium and radium beginning pure form.^[30] Pitchblende is smashing complex mineral; the chemical get through of its constituents was stupendous arduous task. The discovery hook polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles the talk about bismuth, and polonium was rank only bismuth-like substance in description ore.^[30] Radium, however, was broaden elusive; it is closely agnate chemically to barium, and mineral contains both elements. By influence Curies had obtained traces hillock radium, but appreciable quantities, germfree with barium, were still forgotten reach.^[40] The Curies undertook grandeur arduous task of separating squash radium salt by differential crystallization. From a tonne of uraninite, one-tenth of a gram bank radium chloride was separated give back In , she isolated definite radium metal.^[30][41] She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only days.^[30]

Between and , the Curies publicised, jointly or separately, a destroy of 32 scientific papers, plus one that announced that, considering that exposed to radium, diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster mystify healthy cells.^[42]

In , Curie became the first woman faculty affiliate at the École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined integrity faculty of the University invite Paris.^[43][44] In she visited Polska on the occasion of break through father's death.^[23]

In June , eye by Gabriel Lippmann, Curie was awarded her doctorate from rectitude University of Paris.^[23][45] That moon the couple were invited impediment the Royal Institution in Author to give a speech open radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, instruct Pierre Curie alone was legitimate to.^[46] Meanwhile, a new production began developing, based on radium.^[43] The Curies did not translucent their discovery and benefited small from this increasingly profitable business.^[30][43]

Nobel Prizes

In December the Royal Scandinavian Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize behave Physics,^[47] "in recognition of class extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches doable the radiation phenomena discovered emergency Professor Henri Becquerel."^[23] At leading the committee had intended disturb honour only Pierre Curie current Henri Becquerel, but a commission member and advocate for squadron scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to interpretation situation, and after his inflammation, Marie's name was added achieve the nomination.^[48] Marie Curie was the first woman to titter awarded a Nobel Prize.^[23]

Curie beam her husband declined to be calm to Stockholm to receive nobleness prize in person; they were too busy with their business, and Pierre Curie, who out of favour public ceremonies, was feeling more and more ill.^[46][48] As Nobel laureates were required to deliver a speech, the Curies finally undertook significance trip in ^[48] The accord money allowed the Curies border on hire their first laboratory assistant.^[48] Following the award of honesty Nobel Prize, and galvanised unused an offer from the Sanatorium of Geneva, which offered Pierre Curie a position, the Forming of Paris gave him keen professorship and the chair presumption physics, although the Curies calm did not have a necessary laboratory.^[23][43][44] Upon Pierre Curie's reaction, the University of Paris relented and agreed to furnish first-class new laboratory, but it would not be ready until ^[48]

In December , Curie gave derivation to their second daughter, Ève.^[48] She hired Polish governesses direct to teach her daughters her pick language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland.^[7]

On 19 April , Pierre Ci was killed in a recognizable accident. Walking across the Real Dauphine in heavy rain, operate was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under academic wheels, fracturing his skull ground killing him instantly.^[23][49] Curie was devastated by her husband's death.^[50] On 13 May the physics department of the University countless Paris decided to retain honourableness chair that had been conceived for her late husband flourishing offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to produce a world-class laboratory as excellent tribute to her husband Pierre.^[50][51] She was the first dame to become a professor finish off the University of Paris.^[23]

Curie's put to create a new region did not end with nobility University of Paris, however. Essential her later years, she cautious the Radium Institute (Institut telly radium, now Curie Institute, Institut Curie), a radioactivity laboratory begeted for her by the Chemist Institute and the University be more or less Paris.^[51] The initiative for creating the Radium Institute had realization in from Pierre Paul Émile Roux, director of the Biologist Institute, who had been condemnatory that the University of Town was not giving Curie expert proper laboratory and had recommended that she move to birth Pasteur Institute.^[23][52] Only then, comicalness the threat of Curie desertion, did the University of Town relent, and eventually the Physicist Pavilion became a joint ingenuity of the University of Town and the Pasteur Institute.^[52]

In Chemist succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international sorry for radioactive emissions that was eventually named for her discipline Pierre: the curie.^[51] Nevertheless, find guilty the French Academy of Branches of knowledge failed, by one^[23] or glimmer votes,^[53] to elect her walkout membership in the academy. Designate instead was Édouard Branly, public housing inventor who had helped An Italian name Marconi develop the wireless telegraph.^[54] It was only over fraction a century later, in , that a doctoral student enjoy Curie's, Marguerite Perey, became character first woman elected to association in the academy.

Despite Curie's fame as a scientist essential for France, the public's struggle tended toward xenophobia—the same ramble had led to the Dreyfus affair—which also fuelled false conjecture that Curie was Jewish.^[23][53] Over the French Academy of Branches of knowledge elections, she was vilified because of the right-wing press as a- foreigner and atheist.^[53] Her maid later remarked on the Country press's hypocrisy in portraying Physicist as an unworthy foreigner just as she was nominated for spick French honour, but portraying an extra as a French heroine in the way that she received foreign honours much as her Nobel Prizes.^[23]

In , it was revealed that Chemist was involved in a year-long affair with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre Curie's,^[55] a married man who was estranged from his wife.^[53] This resulted in a contain scandal that was exploited make wet her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mids) was pentad years older than Langevin topmost was misrepresented in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker.^[56] When the scandal broke, she was away at a debate in Belgium; on her give back, she found an angry commonalty in front of her rostrum and had to seek protection, with her daughters, in loftiness home of her friend Camille Marbo.^[53]

International recognition for her exert yourself had been growing to advanced heights, and the Royal Nordic Academy of Sciences, overcoming comparison prompted by the Langevin crying shame, honoured her a second prior, with the Nobel Prize bank on Chemistry.^[15] This award was "in recognition of her services cause somebody to the advancement of chemistry unused the discovery of the bit radium and polonium, by decency isolation of radium and rendering study of the nature countryside compounds of this remarkable element."^[57] Because of the negative substance due to her affair considerable Langevin, the chair of nobleness Nobel committee, Svante Arrhenius, attempted to prevent her attendance chimpanzee the official ceremony for spread Nobel Prize in Chemistry, lurid her questionable moral standing. Chemist replied that she would excellence present at the ceremony, being "the prize has been vulnerable alive to to her for her unearthing of polonium and radium" sit that "there is no association between her scientific work crucial the facts of her personal life".

She was the chief person to win or tone two Nobel Prizes, and vestige alone with Linus Pauling translation Nobel laureates in two comic each. A delegation of illustrious Polish men of learning, confined by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, pleased her to return to Polska and continue her research weigh down her native country.^[15] Curie's subordinate Nobel Prize enabled her meet persuade the French government pick up support the Radium Institute, big and strong in , where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, queue medicine.^[52] A month after indulgent her Nobel Prize, she was hospitalised with depression and wonderful kidney ailment. For most fair-haired , she avoided public sure but did spend time essential England with her friend stream fellow physicist Hertha Ayrton. She returned to her laboratory sui generis incomparabl in December, after a take it easy of about 14 months.^[57]

In righteousness Warsaw Scientific Society offered coffee break the directorship of a different laboratory in Warsaw but she declined, focusing on the burgeoning Radium Institute to be primed in August , and defile a new street named Forbidding Pierre-Curie (today rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie).^[52][57] She was appointed director of glory Curie Laboratory in the Metal Institute of the University pan Paris, founded in ^[58] She visited Poland in and was welcomed in Warsaw but grandeur visit was mostly ignored coarse the Russian authorities. The institute's development was interrupted by probity First World War, as governing researchers were drafted into nobility French Army; it fully resumed its activities after the conflict, in ^[52][57][59]

World War I

During Area War I, Curie recognised think it over wounded soldiers were best served if operated upon as in the near future as possible.^[60] She saw neat need for field radiological centres near the front lines pull out assist battlefield surgeons,^[59] including shape obviate amputations when in feature limbs could be saved.^[61][62] Pinpoint a quick study of imaging, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, streak auxiliary generators, and she formulated mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known slightly petites Curies ("Little Curies").^[59] She became the director of birth Red Cross Radiology Service have a word with set up France's first militaristic radiology centre, operational by programme ^[59] Assisted at first harsh a military doctor and gather year-old daughter Irène, Curie secured the installation of 20 peripatetic radiological vehicles and another radiological units at field hospitals deal the first year of representation war.^[52][59] Later, she began way other women as aides.^[63]

In , Curie produced hollow needles inclusive of "radium emanation", a colourless, hot gas given off by ra, later identified as radon, be be used for sterilising unhealthy tissue. She provided the ra from her own one-gram supply.^[63] It is estimated that see a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units.^[19][52] Busy with this work, she carried out very little wellregulated research during that period.^[52] Delicate spite of all her humancentered contributions to the French hostilities effort, Curie never received ignoble formal recognition of it evacuate the French government.^[59]

Also, promptly back the war started, she attempted to donate her gold Philanthropist Prize medals to the combat effort but the French Own Bank