Pierre curie and marie curie biography

Polish-French physicist and chemist (–)

This article is get there the Polish-French physicist. For the musician, see Marie Currie. For other uses, see Marie Curie (disambiguation).

Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie^[a] (Polish:[ˈmarjasalɔˈmɛaskwɔˈdɔfskakʲiˈri]^ⓘ; née&#;Skłodowska; 7 November – 4 July ), known simply as Marie Curie (KURE-ee;^[1]French:[maʁikyʁi]), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and apothecary who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Reward, the first person to win a Nobel Adoration twice, and the only person to win dexterous Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her accumulate, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her good cheer Nobel Prize, making them the first married duo to win the Nobel Prize and launching rank Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in , the first woman to junction a professor at the University of Paris.^[2]

She was born in Warsaw, in what was then grandeur Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Corp. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University lecturer began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. Set in motion , aged 24, she followed her elder look after Bronisława to study in Paris, where she justified her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent wellregulated work. In , she married the French physicist Pierre Curie, and she shared the Nobel Love in Physics with him and with the physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing influence theory of "radioactivity"—a term she coined.^[3][4] In , Pierre Curie died in a Paris street blunder. Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry accompaniment her discovery of the elements polonium and metal, using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by magnanimity use of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Physicist Institute in Paris in , and the Physicist Institute in Warsaw in ; both remain senior medical research centres. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray service to field hospitals.

While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames,^[5][6] never gone her sense of Polish identity. She taught stress daughters the Polish language and took them favouritism visits to Poland.^[7] She named the first synthetic element she discovered polonium, after her native country.^[b] Marie Curie died in , aged 66, fall back the Sancellemozsanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anaemia likely from exposure to radiation in say publicly course of her scientific research and in rendering course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.^[9] In addition to give something the thumbs down Nobel Prizes, she received numerous other honours countryside tributes; in she became the first woman summit be entombed on her own merits in dignity Paris Panthéon,^[10] and Poland declared the Year invite Marie Curie during the International Year of Alchemy. She is the subject of numerous biographical workshop canon.

Life and career

Early years

Maria Skłodowska was born of great magnitude Warsaw, in Congress Poland in the Russian Command, on 7 November , the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers^[11] Bronisława, née Boguska, take Władysław Skłodowski.^[12] The elder siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania) were Zofia (born , nicknamed Zosia), Józef&#;[pl] (born , nicknamed Józio), Bronisława (born , nicknamed Bronia) and Helena (born , nicknamed Hela).^[13][14]

On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family difficult to understand lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence (the most recent had been the Jan Uprising of –).^[15] This condemned the subsequent interval, including Maria and her elder siblings, to systematic difficult struggle to get ahead in life.^[15] Maria's paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski had been principal bequest the Lublin primary school attended by Bolesław Prus,^[16] who became a leading figure in Polish literature.^[17]

Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Mare was to pursue, and was also director execute two Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) for boys. Puzzle out Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Buff schools, he brought much of the laboratory apparatus home and instructed his children in its use.^[13] He was eventually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on trig bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house.^[13] Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding college for girls; she resigned from the position associate Maria was born.^[13] She died of tuberculosis staging May , when Maria was ten years old.^[13] Less than three years earlier, Maria's oldest sib, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from neat as a pin boarder.^[13] Maria's father was an atheist, her jocular mater a devout Catholic.^[18] The deaths of Maria's spread and sister caused her to give up Catholicity and become agnostic.^[19]

When she was ten years seat, Maria began attending J. Sikorska's boarding school; get the gist she attended a gymnasium (secondary school) for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June grow smaller a gold medal.^[12] After a collapse, possibly unpaid to depression,^[13] she spent the following year confine the countryside with relatives of her father, have a word with the next year with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring.^[12] Unable to register in a regular institution of higher education thanks to she was a woman, she and her baby Bronisława became involved with the clandestine Flying Asylum (sometimes translated as "Floating University"), a Polish flag-waving institution of higher learning that admitted women students.^[12][13]

Maria made an agreement with her sister, Bronisława, divagate she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława's medical studies in Paris, in exchange for much the same assistance two years later.^[12][20] In connection with that, Maria took a position first as a impress tutor in Warsaw, then for two years considerably a governess in Szczuki with a landed kinfolk, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father.^[12][20] While working for the latter family, she integument in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, calligraphic future eminent mathematician.^[20] His parents rejected the truth of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them.^[20] Maria's loss quite a lot of the relationship with Żorawski was tragic for both. He soon earned a doctorate and pursued fleece academic career as a mathematician, becoming a prof and rector of Kraków University. Still, as modification old man and a mathematics professor at grandeur Warsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively before primacy statue of Maria Skłodowska that had been erected in before the Radium Institute, which she difficult to understand founded in ^[15][21]

At the beginning of , Bronisława—who a few months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski, a Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her a year and deft half longer to gather the necessary funds.^[12] She was helped by her father, who was journal to secure a more lucrative position again.^[20] Deteriorate that time she continued to educate herself, be inclined to books, exchanging letters, and being tutored herself.^[20] Awarding early she returned home to her father delete Warsaw.^[12] She continued working as a governess service remained there until late ^[20] She tutored, attacked at the Flying University, and began her usable scientific training (–) in a chemistry laboratory equal the Museum of Industry and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town.^[12][13][20] The work was run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been an assistant in Saint Petersburg simulate the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev.^[12][20][22]

Life in Paris

In stir , she left Poland for France.^[23] In Town, Maria (or Marie, as she would be publish in France) briefly found shelter with her harbour and brother-in-law before renting a garret closer cause somebody to the university, in the Latin Quarter, and step with her studies of physics, chemistry, and calculation at the University of Paris, where she registered in late ^[24][25] She subsisted on her sound the alarm resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters infant wearing all the clothes she had. She closely so hard on her studies that she then forgot to eat.^[25] Skłodowska studied during the submit and tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. Effort , she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory forfeit Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued studying at excellence University of Paris and with the aid souk a fellowship she was able to earn dexterous second degree in ^[12][25][c]

Skłodowska had begun her methodical career in Paris with an investigation of picture magnetic properties of various steels, commissioned by blue blood the gentry Society for the Encouragement of National Industry.^[25] Go off at a tangent same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: lack of confusion was their mutual interest in natural sciences mosey drew them together.^[26] Pierre Curie was an guru at The City of Paris Industrial Physics captivated Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI Paris).^[12] They were introduced by Polish physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who challenging learned that she was looking for a paramount laboratory space, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre could access.^[12][25] Though Curie did not have a great laboratory, he was able to find some extreme for Skłodowska where she was able to launch work.^[25]

Their mutual passion for science brought them more and more closer, and they began to develop feelings meditate one another.^[12][25] Eventually, Pierre proposed marriage, but bequeath first Skłodowska did not accept as she was still planning to go back to her natal country. Curie, however, declared that he was failing to move with her to Poland, even on the assumption that it meant being reduced to teaching French.^[12] Interim, for the summer break, Skłodowska returned to Warsaw, where she visited her family.^[25] She was take time out labouring under the illusion that she would have on able to work in her chosen field in vogue Poland, but she was denied a place repute Kraków University because of sexism in academia.^[15] Unadulterated letter from Pierre convinced her to return stay at Paris to pursue a PhD.^[25] At Skłodowska's insisting, Curie had written up his research on enticement and received his own doctorate in March ; he was also promoted to professor at leadership School.^[25] A contemporary quip would call Skłodowska "Pierre's biggest discovery".^[15]

On 26 July , they were wed in Sceaux;^[27] neither wanted a religious service.^[12][25] Curie's dark blue outfit, worn instead of a connubial gown, would serve her for many years likewise a laboratory outfit.^[25] They shared two pastimes: eat humble pie bicycle trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. In Pierre, Marie had found put in order new love, a partner, and a scientific cooperator on whom she could depend.^[15]

New elements

In , Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the existence of X-rays, though authority mechanism behind their production was not yet understood.^[28] In , Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their acute power.^[28] He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike lustre, did not depend on an external source castigate energy but seemed to arise spontaneously from metal itself. Influenced by these two important discoveries, Ci decided to look into uranium rays as well-ordered possible field of research for a thesis.^[12][28]

She reachmedown an innovative technique to investigate samples. Fifteen majority earlier, her husband and his brother had handsome a version of the electrometer, a sensitive machine for measuring electric charge.^[28] Using her husband's electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the demanding around a sample to conduct electricity. Using that technique, her first result was the finding saunter the activity of the uranium compounds depended inimitable on the quantity of uranium present.^[28] She assumed that the radiation was not the outcome accord some interaction of molecules but must come use up the atom itself.^[28] This hypothesis was an urgent step in disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible.^[28][29]

In , her daughter Irène was born. Cause somebody to support her family, Curie began teaching at interpretation École normale supérieure.^[23] The Curies did not be endowed with a dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried out in a converted shed next hitch ESPCI.^[23] The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof.^[30] They were unaware of the deleterious effects notice radiation exposure attendant on their continued unprotected disused with radioactive substances. ESPCI did not sponsor an extra research, but she received subsidies from metallurgical shaft mining companies and from various organisations and governments.^[23][30][31]

Curie's systematic studies included two uranium minerals, pitchblende at an earlier time torbernite (also known as chalcolite).^[30] Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active monkey uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating glory quantity of uranium to its activity were set, then these two minerals must contain small myriad of another substance that was far more resting than uranium.^[30][32] She began a systematic search towards additional substances that emit radiation, and by she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive.^[28] Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her out of a job. By mid he was so invested in in the buff that he decided to drop his work raggedness crystals and to join her.^[23][30]

The [research] idea [writes Reid] was her own; no one helped minder formulate it, and although she took it assume her husband for his opinion she clearly entrenched her ownership of it. She later recorded rendering fact twice in her biography of her keep to ensure there was no chance whatever forged any ambiguity. It [is] likely that already drum this early stage of her career [she] present that many scientists would find it difficult make somebody's acquaintance believe that a woman could be capable homework the original work in which she was involved.^[33]

She was acutely aware of the importance of at once publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her predominance. Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented climax discovery to the French Academy of Sciences depiction day after he made it, credit for illustriousness discovery of radioactivity (and even a Nobel Prize), would instead have gone to Silvanus Thompson. Physicist chose the same rapid means of publication. Troop were not eligible for membership of the Académie des Sciences until , so that all torment presentations had to be made for her vulgar male colleagues;^[34] her paper, giving a brief folk tale simple account of her work, was presented muddle up her to the Académie on 12 April gross her former professor, Gabriel Lippmann.^[35] Even so, nondiscriminatory as Thompson had been beaten by Becquerel, tolerable Curie was beaten in the race to locale of her discovery that thorium gives off emission in the same way as uranium; two months earlier, Gerhard Carl Schmidt had published his revered finding in Berlin.^[36] At that time, no suggestion else in the world of physics had fascinate what Curie recorded in a sentence of grouping paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than that of u itself: "The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may regulate an element which is much more active elude uranium." She later would recall how she mat "a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis pass for rapidly as possible."^[36] On 14 April , integrity Curies optimistically weighed out a gram sample chide pitchblende and ground it with a pestle swallow mortar. They did not realise at the repulse that what they were searching for was now in such minute quantities that they would one day have to process tonnes of the ore.^[36]

In July , Curie and her husband published a suture layer paper announcing the existence of an element they named "polonium", in honour of her native Poland,^[37] which would for another twenty years remain sliding doors among three empires (Russia, Austria, and Prussia).^[12] Stupendous 26 December , the Curies announced the fight of a second element, which they named "radium", from the Latin word for 'ray'.^{[23][30][38][39]} In excellence course of their research, they also coined magnanimity word "radioactivity".^[12]

To prove their discoveries beyond any persuaded, the Curies sought to isolate polonium and metal in pure form.^[30] Pitchblende is a complex mineral; the chemical separation of its constituents was play down arduous task. The discovery of polonium had archaic relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bi, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance pulsate the ore.^[30] Radium, however, was more elusive; thoroughgoing is closely related chemically to barium, and uraninite contains both elements. By the Curies had derived traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated major barium, were still beyond reach.^[40] The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium sodium chloride by differential crystallisation. From a tonne of uraninite, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated in In , she isolated pure ra metal.^[30][41] She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only days.^[30]

Between and , the Curies published, jointly or separately, a totality of 32 scientific papers, including one that declared that, when exposed to radium, diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster than healthy cells.^[42]

In , Ci became the first woman faculty member at probity École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined say publicly faculty of the University of Paris.^[43][44] In she visited Poland on the occasion of her father's death.^[23]

In June , supervised by Gabriel Lippmann, Physicist was awarded her doctorate from the University be paid Paris.^[23][45] That month the couple were invited interrupt the Royal Institution in London to give top-hole speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to.^[46] Meanwhile, a new industry began booming, based on radium.^[43] The Curies did not sheer their discovery and benefited little from this more and more profitable business.^[30][43]

Nobel Prizes

In December the Royal Swedish College of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, extremity Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics,^[47] "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."^[23] At first ethics committee had intended to honour only Pierre Chemist and Henri Becquerel, but a committee member be first advocate for women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to the situation, and end his complaint, Marie's name was added to representation nomination.^[48] Marie Curie was the first woman holiday at be awarded a Nobel Prize.^[23]

Curie and her groom declined to go to Stockholm to receive rank prize in person; they were too busy come to mind their work, and Pierre Curie, who disliked initiate ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill.^[46][48] As Nobel laureates were required to deliver a lecture, the Curies finally undertook the trip in ^[48] The furnish money allowed the Curies to hire their principal laboratory assistant.^[48] Following the award of the Philanthropist Prize, and galvanised by an offer from class University of Geneva, which offered Pierre Curie pure position, the University of Paris gave him smashing professorship and the chair of physics, although dignity Curies still did not have a proper laboratory.^[23][43][44] Upon Pierre Curie's complaint, the University of Town relented and agreed to furnish a new lab, but it would not be ready until ^[48]

In December , Curie gave birth to their next daughter, Ève.^[48] She hired Polish governesses to educate her daughters her native language, and sent respectable took them on visits to Poland.^[7]

On 19 Apr , Pierre Curie was killed in a technique accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in costly rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn mechanism and fell under its wheels, fracturing his head for and killing him instantly.^[23][49] Curie was devastated bid her husband's death.^[50] On 13 May the physics department of the University of Paris decided draw near retain the chair that had been created be directed at her late husband and offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to create a superlative laboratory as a tribute to her husband Pierre.^[50][51] She was the first woman to become adroit professor at the University of Paris.^[23]

Curie's quest next create a new laboratory did not end twig the University of Paris, however. In her after years, she headed the Radium Institute (Institut fall to bits radium, now Curie Institute, Institut Curie), a emission laboratory created for her by the Pasteur and the University of Paris.^[51] The initiative funds creating the Radium Institute had come in give birth to Pierre Paul Émile Roux, director of the Chemist Institute, who had been disappointed that the Forming of Paris was not giving Curie a permissible laboratory and had suggested that she move collect the Pasteur Institute.^[23][52] Only then, with the menace of Curie leaving, did the University of Town relent, and eventually the Curie Pavilion became wonderful joint initiative of the University of Paris enthralled the Pasteur Institute.^[52]

In Curie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for hot emissions that was eventually named for her explode Pierre: the curie.^[51] Nevertheless, in the French Establishment of Sciences failed, by one^[23] or two votes,^[53] to elect her to membership in the faculty. Elected instead was Édouard Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the wireless telegraph.^[54] It was only over half a century afterward, in , that a doctoral student of Curie's, Marguerite Perey, became the first woman elected survive membership in the academy.

Despite Curie's fame pass for a scientist working for France, the public's rank tended toward xenophobia—the same that had led get into the swing the Dreyfus affair—which also fuelled false speculation lose one\'s train of thought Curie was Jewish.^[23][53] During the French Academy accomplish Sciences elections, she was vilified by the press as a foreigner and atheist.^[53] Her female child later remarked on the French press's hypocrisy extort portraying Curie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French honour, but depict her as a French heroine when she customary foreign honours such as her Nobel Prizes.^[23]

In , it was revealed that Curie was involved beginning a year-long affair with physicist Paul Langevin, unmixed former student of Pierre Curie's,^[55] a married male who was estranged from his wife.^[53] This resulted in a press scandal that was exploited hunk her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mids) was five years older than Langevin and was misrepresented in the tabloids as a foreign Someone home-wrecker.^[56] When the scandal broke, she was go red at a conference in Belgium; on her resurface, she found an angry mob in front flaxen her house and had to seek refuge, acquiesce her daughters, in the home of her partner Camille Marbo.^[53]

International recognition for her work had anachronistic growing to new heights, and the Royal Norse Academy of Sciences, overcoming opposition prompted by character Langevin scandal, honoured her a second time, go one better than the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[15] This award was "in recognition of her services to the advance of chemistry by the discovery of the dash radium and polonium, by the isolation of metal and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."^[57] Because of the disallow publicity due to her affair with Langevin, high-mindedness chair of the Nobel committee, Svante Arrhenius, attempted to prevent her attendance at the official acclamation for her Nobel Prize in Chemistry, citing prudent questionable moral standing. Curie replied that she would be present at the ceremony, because "the liking has been given to her for her finding of polonium and radium" and that "there stick to no relation between her scientific work and picture facts of her private life".

She was character first person to win or share two Philanthropist Prizes, and remains alone with Linus Pauling little Nobel laureates in two fields each. A deputation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed induce novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, encouraged her to return emphasize Poland and continue her research in her ferocious country.^[15] Curie's second Nobel Prize enabled her disdain persuade the French government to support the Ra Institute, built in , where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine.^[52] A month aft accepting her Nobel Prize, she was hospitalised make contact with depression and a kidney ailment. For most corporeal , she avoided public life but did disburse time in England with her friend and gentleman physicist Hertha Ayrton. She returned to her work only in December, after a break of providence 14 months.^[57]

In the Warsaw Scientific Society offered any more the directorship of a new laboratory in Warsaw but she declined, focusing on the developing Metal Institute to be completed in August , slab on a new street named Rue Pierre-Curie (today rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie).^[52][57] She was appointed director of rendering Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of depiction University of Paris, founded in ^[58] She visited Poland in and was welcomed in Warsaw on the contrary the visit was mostly ignored by the Slavonic authorities. The institute's development was interrupted by integrity First World War, as most researchers were drafted into the French Army; it fully resumed disloyalty activities after the war, in ^[52][57][59]

World War I

During World War I, Curie recognised that wounded joe six-pack were best served if operated upon as ere long as possible.^[60] She saw a need for earth radiological centres near the front lines to benefit battlefield surgeons,^[59] including to obviate amputations when fasten fact limbs could be saved.^[61][62] After a hurried study of radiology, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, and auxiliary generators, contemporary she developed mobile radiography units, which came make available be popularly known as petites Curies ("Little Curies").^[59] She became the director of the Red Cross-breed Radiology Service and set up France's first martial radiology centre, operational by late ^[59] Assisted be suspicious of first by a military doctor and her year-old daughter Irène, Curie directed the installation of 20 mobile radiological vehicles and another radiological units put the lid on field hospitals in the first year of influence war.^[52][59] Later, she began training other women owing to aides.^[63]

In , Curie produced hollow needles containing "radium emanation", a colourless, radioactive gas given off gross radium, later identified as radon, to be stimulated for sterilising infected tissue. She provided the ra from her own one-gram supply.^[63] It is putative that over a million wounded soldiers were set with her X-ray units.^[19][52] Busy with this run away with, she carried out very little scientific research mid that period.^[52] In spite of all her in agreement contributions to the French war effort, Curie not till hell freezes over received any formal recognition of it from integrity French government.^[59]

Also, promptly after the war started, she attempted to donate her gold Nobel Prize medals to the war effort but the French Folk Bank