Marie Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. Marie Curie was born on November the 7th, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. In 1903 she was the first female to have ever won Noble Prizes. In 1911 she took home her second Noble prize making her the first person to win two Noble Prizes, and she remains to be the only person ever to receive Noble Prizes award in two separate sciences. Marie won her second Noble Prize for adding two more elements into the periodic table: radium and polonium.
Nobel Prizes
Noble prize-winning ran in Marie’s family. Marie and her husband, Pierre won their Noble Prize in 1903. Her daughter grew up to win the Noble prize for Chemistry with her husband. They were recognized for discovering artificial radioactivity. Marie’s other son in law accepted a Noble Prize for peace on behalf of UNICEF.
Marie's Education
Marie was the youngest child of highly educated Polish educators. For this reason, they wanted all their children to have a proper education which was going against the law which said that girls were not allowed to have education after the age of 15. Because of this Marie received extra science training from her Father. After collecting her high school diploma at the age of 15, Marie wanted to go to the University of Warsaw with her sister. Unfortunately, the University would not accept females so then Marie's parents enrolled her and her sister at the Flying University. It was still illegal for women to receive higher education, so the University was always changing location to avoid detection from the authorities. In 1891 Marie moved with her sister to Paris, where she enrolled at the Sorbonne to continue her education. This is where she got her degree in Physics in 1893 and a degree in Mathematics the next year.
Marie Curie's Death
Marie Curie died of aplastic anaemia, a rare blood disease which is caused by too much exposure to radiation. She was known to carry test tubes of radium around in her pocket. Her body is still to this day radioactive and was therefore placed in a coffin lined with nearly an inch of lead. Marie Curie was performing her most important research on radiation in the early 20th century and she had no idea of the effects it would have on her health. Even her notebooks are radioactive and will likely remain radioactive for another 1500 years. Today they are stored in lead-lined boxes.
X-rays
Marie’s desire to help her country fight the new war made her want to help, for this reason, she developed an interest in x-rays. It did not take her long to realize that x-rays would help soldiers on the battlefield. Marie convinced the French government and she persuaded her wealthy friends to fund her idea. Her invention was proven effective to save many lives. The x-ray machines were called “petite Curies” and 20 were built for the war.
She Worked in a Shed
The research that Marie did required hours of physical labour and labs were not big enough. So they had to work in an old shed behind the school Pierre worked in. After the famed German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald visited the Curies' shed to see the place where radium was discovered, he described it as being "a cross between a stable and a potato shed, and if I had not seen the worktable and items of chemical apparatus, I would have thought that I was been played a practical joke."