Marie Curie
Physicist and chemist, pioneer in the study of radiation.
About Marie Curie
- She was a pioneer in the study of radiation, discovering polonium and radium.
- First person to win two Nobel Prizes, Physics Prize in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911.
- First woman to obtain a position as a teacher in the Paris University.
Chronology
1867
Maria Salomea Sklodowska is born on November 7, in Warsaw, Poland. Daughter of Wladyslaw Sklodowski, professor of Physics and Mathematics, and Bronislawa Boguska, teacher, pianist and singer.
1883
Wins a gold medal in secondary school.
1891
She moves to France and settles down in Paris. She studies Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in Sorbona University.
1893
She graduates in Physics, being the number one of the promotion. She then starts working on the industrial lab from professor Lippmann.
1894
She graduates in Mathematics being the second one from the promotion.
1895
The 26th of July she marries Pierre Curie. Using a electrometer that her husband and her brother in law had invented, she measures the rays emitted by uranium and thorium in mineral samples. She founds out that the ntensity of the radiation emmited by the samble depends only in the quantity of the element in the sample.
1897
Her first daughter, Irene, is born. Later on, she would recieve the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1935.
1898
The 18th of July, Pierre and Marie discover polonium.
The 26th of July, both of them announce the discovery of radium,
a new chemical element, 900 times more radioactive than uranium.
1903
Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie share the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on radioactivity. He publishes an article in the American magazine Independent, describing their findings.
1904
The 6th of December, her second daughter, Eve, is born.
1906
On April 19, Pierre dies after being struck by a horse-drawn carriage. On November 5, she became the first female professor at the Sorbonne.
1911
Receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering radium and polonium and for isolating radium, becoming the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes. He stars in a scandal when he is related to the wise Paul Langevin, who was married.
1913
Albert Einstein and his wife spend some time at Marie's house.
1914
She became director of the Paris Radio Institute.
1914-1919
During World War I, she served as director of the Radiology Service of the French Red Cross and created the first military radiology center in France.
1921
Travel to the United States to receive a gram of radium donated by the American people to the Radium Institute. The National Institute of Social Sciences awards him its gold medal.
1934
On January 15, Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie announce their discovery of artificial radioactivity. On July 4, Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia, probably contracted by the radiation to which she was exposed during her work.
1935
Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1995
On April 20, her remains, along with those of Pierre, are transferred to the Panthéon in Paris, becoming the first woman to receive that honor on her own merit.