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1867–1934 · Radioactivity

Marie Skłodowska-Curie

Polish-French physicist and chemist who pioneered research on radioactivity, discovered polonium and radium, and became the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

McPoland / France

Early Life

Born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867, then under Russian rule, she was the youngest of five children of two teachers. Women could not attend university in Poland, so she studied secretly at the underground "Flying University" and worked as a governess to fund her sister's medical studies in Paris. In 1891 she moved to Paris, enrolled at the Sorbonne, and lived on bread and tea while earning degrees in physics (1893) and mathematics (1894). There she met Pierre Curie, whom she married in 1895, beginning one of science's greatest partnerships.

Major Discoveries

  • 01Coined the term 'radioactivity' and showed it is an atomic property, not a chemical reaction
  • 02Discovered the element polonium (1898), named after her homeland Poland
  • 03Discovered the element radium (1898) with Pierre Curie
  • 04Isolated pure radium metal in 1910 with André-Louis Debierne
  • 05Developed techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes
  • 06Pioneered mobile X-ray units ('petites Curies') used in World War I

Famous Experiments

  • 01Measured uranium ray intensity using Pierre's piezoelectric electrometer, finding it depended only on the amount of uranium
  • 02Processed tonnes of pitchblende ore in a leaky shed to extract a decigram of radium chloride
  • 03Determined the atomic weight of radium (≈226) through years of fractional crystallisation
  • 04Organised radiology services and trained 150 women operators during WWI

Awards & Honors

  • 01Nobel Prize in Physics (1903), shared with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel
  • 02Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)
  • 03Davy Medal of the Royal Society (1903)
  • 04Matteucci Medal (1904)
  • 05Elliott Cresson Medal (1909)
  • 06Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society (1921)

Legacy

Curie's work laid the foundation for nuclear physics and cancer radiotherapy. She founded the Radium Institutes in Paris and Warsaw, still major research centres today. Element 96, curium, is named in her honour, and in 1995 she became the first woman entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Fun Facts

  • 01Her notebooks are still so radioactive they are stored in lead-lined boxes
  • 02She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first woman professor at the University of Paris
  • 03Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935)
  • 04She refused to patent radium extraction so that science could progress freely