marrie curie

In 1910, Marie isolated a pure sample of the metallic element radium for the first time. She had discovered the element 12 years earlier.In 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.Again, Marie Curie had broken the mold she was the first person to win a Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry. In fact, she is the only person ever to have done this.

During World War 1, 1914 1918, Marie Curie put her scientific knowledge to use. With the help of her daughter Irene, who was only 17 years old, she set up radiology medical units near battle lines to allow X rays to be taken of wounded soldiers. By the end of the war, over one million injured soldiers had passed through her radiology units.

Marie Curie was now recognized worldwide as one of sciences greats. She traveled widely to talk about science and to promote The Radium Institute which she had founded to carry out medical research.Marie was one of the small number of elite scientists invited to one of the most famous scientific conferences of all time the 1927 Solvay Conference on Electrons and Photons.

Marie Curie became aware that the rays coming from radioactive elements could be used to treat tumors. She and Pierre decided not to patent the medical applications of radium, and so could not profit from it.In her later years, Marie Curies dearest wish was to explore the use of radioactivity in medical applications. To do this, she established the Radium Institute.At $120,000 per gram, radium was horrendously expensive millions of dollars in todays money. Marie Curie could only afford 1 gram of it for use in cancer therapies at the Radium Institute.In 1920, Marie gave an interview about her work at the Radium Institute to the American journalist Marie Mattingly Meloney, who was usually called Missy.

Missy asked Marie how she could help the Institute. Marie said that American chemical companies had now isolated 50 grams of radium. Her Institute desperately needed one more gram for medical research, but could not afford it.Missy returned to the USA and became Chair of the Marie Curium Radium Fund, with the aim of getting Marie Curie her 1 gram of radium. Money was raised in small donations all over the country. The Standard Chemical Company of Pittsburgh agreed to supply the radium at the reduced price of $100,000.On May 20th, 1921, President Warren G. Harding presented Marie with the radium in a lead lined steel box at the White House.Since then, the Radium Institute (it is now the called the Curie Institute) has gone from strength to strength. Three of its workers have been awarded Nobel Prizes Irene and Frederic Joliot Curie won the chemistry prize in 1935 and Pierre Gilles de Gennes won the physics prize in 1991. Irene was Marie and Pierres daughter. She shared the prize with her husband Frederic. The Curie Institute continues to do important research work today.

Marie next decided to test all of the known many chemical ores to see if any others would emit Becquerel rays. In 1898, she coined the term radioactive to describe materials that had this effect. Pierre was so interested in her research that he put his own work aside to help her. Together, they found that two ores, chalcolite and pitchblende, were much more radioactive than pure uranium. Marie suspected that these ores might contain as yet undiscovered radioactive elements.

Several tons of pitchblende were donated by the Austrian government, but the space Marie was using for a lab was too small. The Curies moved their research to an old shed outside of the school. Processing the ore was backbreaking work. New protocols for separating the pitchblende into its chemical components had to be devised. Marie often worked late into the night stirring huge cauldrons with an iron rod nearly as tall as her.

Little by little, various components of the ore were tested. The Curies found that two of the chemical components, one containing mostly bismuth and another containing mostly barium, were strongly radioactive. In July 1898, the Curies published their conclusion the bismuth compound contained a previously undiscovered radioactive element that they named polonium, after Marie's native country, Poland. By the end of that year they had isolated a second radioactive element they called radium, from radius, the Latin word for rays. In 1902, they announced success in extracting purified radium.In June 1903, Marie was the first woman in Europe to earn a doctorate in physics. In November of that year the Curies, together with Henri Becquerel, were named winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the understanding of atomic structure. The nominating committee objected to including a woman as a Nobel Laureate, but Pierre insisted that the original research was Maries. In 1911, after Pierres death, Marie was awarded a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium.

Marie continued to do research in radioactivity. When World War I broke out in 1914, she suspended her studies and organized a fleet of portable X ray machines for doctors on the front.After the war, she worked hard to raise money for her Radium Institute, including a trip to the United States. But by 1920, she was suffering from medical problems, likely due to her exposure to radioactive materials. On July 4, 1934, she died of aplastic anemia, a blood disease that is often caused by too much exposure to radiation.Maries was buried next to Pierre, but in 1995, their remains were moved and interred in the Pantheon in Paris alongside France's greatest citizens.The Curies received another honor in 1944 with the discovery of the 96th element on the Periodic Table of the Elements, which was named curium.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
One never notices what has been done, one can only see what remains to be done.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.

It took six years, but, after Bronislawa graduated and became a doctor, Marie moved to France and entered the Sorbonne. During the six years Marie had read a lot of books on math and physics. She knew she wanted to become a scientist.Marie arrived in France in 1891. In order to fit in, she changed her name from Manya to Marie. Marie lived the life of a poor college student, but she loved every minute of it. She was learning so much. After three years she earned her degree in Physics.In 1894 Marie met Pierre Curie. Like Marie, he was a scientist and the two of them fell in love. They married a year later and soon had their first child, a daughter named Irene.

Marie and her husband spent many hours in the science lab investigating pitchblende and the new element. They eventually figured out that there were two new elements in pitchblende. They had discovered two new elements for the periodic table.Marie named one of the elements polonium after her homeland Poland. She named the other radium, because it gave off such strong rays. The Curies came up with the term radioactivity to describe elements that emitted strong rays.

As Marie grew older her family came upon tough times. Poland was under the control of Russia at the time. People were not even allowed to read or write anything in the Polish language. Her father lost his job because he was in favor of Polish rule. Then, when Marie was ten, her oldest sister Zofia became sick and died from the disease typhus. Two years later her mother died from tuberculosis. This was a difficult time for the young Marie.After graduating from high school, Marie wanted to attend a university, but this wasn't something that young women did in Poland in the 1800s. The university was for men. However, there was a famous university in Paris, France called the Sorbonne that women could attend. Marie did not have the money to go there, but agreed to work to help pay for her sister Bronislawa to go to school in France, if she would help Marie after she graduated.