Marie Curie

She was introduced to Pierre Curie by the Polish physicist, Professor Józef Wierusz-Kowalski. There was instant chemistry between the two as they shared a common passion for science.

Pierre proposed marriage to her but was declined. He again tried and the two tied the nuptials on July 26, 1895. Two years later, they were blessed with a baby girl Irene. In 1904, their second daughter Eve was born.

Marie breathed her last on July 4, 1934, at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, suffering from aplastic anemia due to prolonged exposure to radiation.

Maria Sklodowska (Marie Curie) was the youngest of the five children born to Bronislawa and Wladyslaw Sklodowski. Both her parents were employed as teachers.

Since a young age, she took to following the footsteps of her father and showed keen interest in mathematics and physics. After attaining her preliminary education from J. Sikorska, she enrolled herself in the gymnasium for girls. She graduated with a gold medal in 1883.

Unable to enrol in the men-only University of Warsaw, she then took up a teaching position with the Flying University. However, she did not let her dream to earn an official degree fade away and struck a deal with elder sister Bronislawa, according to which, she would support Bronislawa initially and later would be assisted by her.

She took up odd jobs, that of a tutor and governess, to earn extra money to assist her sister’s education. Meanwhile, in her spare time, she continued to self-educate herself, reading books and like. She even started her practical scientific training at the chemical laboratory.

In 1891, she moved to France and enrolled herself at the Sorbonne University. It was there that she came to be known as Marie. With meagre financial aid, she took to tutoring in the evening to earn money for survival.

In 1896, Henri Becquerel’s discovery of uranium salts emitting rays deeply inspired and interested her and led to taking the work a little further. She employed electrometer to find out that the rays remained constant, irrespective of the condition or form of uranium.

After conducting her research, she found out that the rays were emitted from the element’s atomic structure and were not the outcome of the interaction of molecules. It was due to this revolutionary finding that the field of atomic physics came into existence.

Since conducting researches did not bring much financial assistance to the family, she took up a teaching position at the École Normale Supérieure. Meanwhile, she continued with her research employing two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite.

Intrigued by her work, Pierre dropped his own research on crystals and started working with Curie in 1898. They began to conduct a study to find out additional substances that emitted radiation.

In 1898, while working on the mineral pitchblende, they discovered a new element which was also radioactive. They named it ‘polonium’, after Poland. Later the same year, they found out yet another element that they named ‘radium’. It was during this time that they coined the term, ‘radioactivity’.

She was responsible for coining the term radioactivity and theorizing the concept, in addition to discovering two elements polonium and radium and finding techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes.