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| Birth Name(s) : Marie Curie |
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Full Marie Curie Biography
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (born Maria Skłodowska; November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a physicist and chemist of Polish upbringing and, subsequently, French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first twice-honored Nobel laureate (and still the only one in two different sciences) and the first female professor at the University of Paris.
She was born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, and lived there until she was 24. In 1891 she followed her elder sister to study in Paris, where she obtained her higher degrees and conducted her scientific work. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. She was the wife of fellow-Nobel-laureate Pierre Curie and the mother of a third Nobel laureate, Irène Joliot-Curie.
Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw to Polish parents, Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski, both of whom were teachers and instilled in their children a sense of the value of learning.
At the University of Paris, she met and married Pierre Curie. At the time, Pierre Curie was an instructor in the School of Physics and Chemistry, the École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI). Skłodowska was a student at the University of Paris, and had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels; it was their mutual interest in magnetism that drew Skłodowska and Curie together.Pierre and Marie Curie in their Paris lab before 1907 (he died in 1906).
In 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."
On April 19, 1906, Pierre was killed in a street accident as he was leaving a publishers office. He had gone there to review proofs of an article, and found the business closed due to a strike. Heading back across the street in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull. While it has been speculated that he may previously have been weakened by prolonged radiation exposure, it has not been proven that this was the cause of the accident. Marie was devastated by her husband's death and may subsequently have had an affair with physicist Paul Langevin — a married man who had left his wife — which resulted in a press scandal, exploited by her academic opponents. Despite her fame as a scientist working for France, the public's attitude to the scandal tended toward xenophobia.
Langevin's grandson Michel Langevin later married Skłodowska-Curie's granddaughter, Hélène Joliot.
In her later years, Skłodowska-Curie headed the Pasteur Institute and a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the University of Paris.Polish 20,000-złoty banknote with likeness of Maria Skłodowska-Curie.500-French franc banknote with Marie Curie and (background) her husband and 1903 fellow-Nobel-laureate, Pierre Curie.Plaque commemorating Maria Skłodowska-Curie's first scientific work (1890–91), in a laboratory at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, Warsaw.
Her death near Sallanches, Savoy, in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly due to exposure to radiation, as the damaging effects of ionising radiation were not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed with no safety measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light the substances gave off in the dark.
She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, where Pierre lay, but sixty years later, in 1995, in honor of their work, the remains of both were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris.
As one of the most famous female scientists to date, Marie Curie has been an icon in the scientific world and has inspired many tributes and recognitions. In 1995, she 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. The curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in their honour, as is the element with atomic number 96 - curium.
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon starred in the 1943 U.S. Oscar-nominated film, Madame Curie, based on her life. "Marie Curie" is also the name of a character in a 1988 comedy, Young Einstein, by Yahoo Serious.
Pierre and Marie Curie University, the largest science, technology and medicine university in France, and successor institution to the faculty of science at the University of Paris, where she taught, is named in honour of her and Pierre. The university is home to the laboratory where they discovered radium.
Another school named for her, Marie Curie M.S. 158, in Bayside, New York, specializes in science and technology as does Curie Metropolitan High School, located in the community area of Archer Heights on Chicago's Southwest Side. It has a Technical, Performing Arts and IB program.
The Maria Skłodowska-Curie Medallion, a stained-glass panel created by Jozef C. Mazur, may be found at the University at Buffalo Polish Room. |
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