Marie Curie was born in Poland on November 7, 1867. She became one of the most famous scientists ever. She achieved a lot in chemistry, physics, and medicine, but not all her accomplishments got awards. Here are some facts you might not know about her.
Marie Curie’s parents were teachers.
Maria Skłodowska was the youngest of five children. Her parents, who were Polish educators, believed in the importance of education for all their children, including their daughters. They made sure Maria got a good education at home and school. Maria received extra science lessons from her father. When she finished high school at age 15, she was the top student in her class.
She had to seek out alternative education for women.
After finishing high school, Maria wanted to study at the University of Warsaw with her sister, Bronia. But the university didn’t allow women, so they went to the Flying University, a college in Poland that accepted female students. It was against the law for women to get higher education at that time, so the college had to move around a lot to avoid getting caught by the authorities. In 1891, Maria went to Paris to live with her sister and went to the Sorbonne to keep studying.
Marie Curie won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences
In 1903, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in physics with her husband, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win this prize. In 1911, she won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, making her the first person to win the award twice. She is still the only person to ever win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Curie added two elements to the Periodic Table.
Marie Curie won another Nobel Prize for discovering two elements: radium and polonium. Radium’s name comes from the Latin word for “ray,” and polonium is named after her home country, Poland.
Nobel Prize-winning Runs in her family
When Marie and Pierre won the Nobel Prize in 1903, their daughter Irène was just 6 years old. She grew up and followed her parents’ path by winning the Nobel Prize for chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, in 1935. They were honored for discovering “artificial” radioactivity, which was made possible by Irène’s parents’ earlier work. Marie and Pierre’s other son-in-law, Henry Labouisse, who married their younger daughter, Ève Curie, accepted a Nobel Prize for Peace on behalf of UNICEF in 1965. This made a total of five Nobel Prizes for the family. Ève Curie Labouisse was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper publisher, advocate during World War II, and biographer of her mother.
Curie did her most important work in a shed
Marie Curie’s research for her first Nobel Prize was very hard work. To prove they discovered new elements, she and her husband had to break down a lot of ore into its chemical parts. Their usual labs were too small for this, so they worked in an old shed behind the school where Pierre worked. Curie said the shed was very hot in summer and cold in winter. The glass roof didn’t fully protect them from rain. When the famous chemist Wilhelm Ostwald visited the shed to see where they found radium, he said it looked like a mix of a stable and a shed. If he hadn’t seen their worktable and equipment, he would have thought it was a joke.
Marie Curie’s notebooks are still radioactive
When Marie Curie was doing her important research on radiation in the early 1900s, she didn’t know it could harm her health. She often carried bottles of polonium and radium in her pockets around her lab. She even mentioned in her autobiography that she kept the radioactive materials out in the open. She described how the glowing tubes looked like dim fairy lights when they worked in the lab at night.
It’s not surprising that Marie Curie died from aplastic anemia in 1934, which was likely caused by being around radiation for a long time. Even her notebooks are still radioactive today, a hundred years later. They’re kept in lead-lined boxes now and will probably stay radioactive for another 1500 years.
Marie and Pierre once investigated a psychic medium
Two years after they won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Marie and Pierre Curie got involved in investigating Eusapia Palladino, an Italian medium who said she could communicate with the dead. They went to several seances with her. Pierre believed some of the things Palladino did, like making objects and tables float, were genuine. Marie wasn’t as sure about it.
Curie offered to donate her medals to the war effort
A few years after winning two Nobel Prizes, Curie thought about giving away her medals. When World War I began, France needed gold to pay for the war. Curie wanted to help, so she offered to melt down her two medals. But the bank said no. Instead, she gave her prize money to buy war bonds.
Marie Curie developed a portable X-ray to treat soldiers
After donating her prizes, Marie wanted to keep helping her new country during the war. She became interested in X-rays, which wasn’t much different from her previous work with radium. She realized that X-rays could help soldiers on the battlefield.
Marie convinced the French government to let her lead the Red Cross Radiology Service. She also got her rich friends to pay for a mobile X-ray machine she invented. She learned to drive and operate the vehicle herself. She treated wounded soldiers at the Battle of the Marne, even though military doctors didn’t think it would work. Her invention saved lives, and they built 20 “petite Curies,” as they called the X-ray machines, for the war.
She founded centers for medical research
After World War I, Marie Curie started raising money again. This time, she wanted to support her research centers in Paris and Warsaw. These centers, called radium institutes, were where important discoveries happened. Marguerite Perey discovered a new element called francium there. Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie also developed artificial radioactivity there. These centers, now called Institut Curie, are still used for important cancer treatment research today.
