The Life and Achievements of Marie Curie

Samantha Gibbs
Physics 1010, H. Demars
4/20/2015

Marie Curie, born Maria Salomea Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw, Poland on
November 7, 1867. Her parents were Bronislawa and Wladyslaw Sklodowski and she was the
youngest of their five children. Maries family was actually a part of a minor nobility, though
they were stripped of all their land and political power after the defeat of Poland by Russia when
it was known as Czarist Russia. Even though she was born into nobility, the occupation had
started around the time Marie was born, creating a dark time for the Skladowski family. The
occupation of Russia in Poland during the time of Maries childhood had an impact on her
throughout her entire life.
Marie Curie is one of the most celebrated and accomplished woman in our history. Her
upbringing and her parents stance of education had a huge impact on the success she had
educationally and scientifically. Her parents both came from extremely educated families and
each thought thorough and rigorous education was an essential asset for both males and females.
They had very high expectations for their children academically and asked that their education
never end. Both Bronislawa and Wladyslaw were headmistress and headmaster at schools in
Warsaw and both were tremendously invested in the education of all, including those who were
not born into nobility.
Around the age of eleven Marie Curies sister died from contracting Typhus, shortly after
her mother passed away due to complications from tuberculosis. Though these tragedies
happened so closely to each other, Maries father and the rest of her family insisted that she and
her siblings continue with a thorough education. Marie attended a few different private and
public institutions as a youth. In these institutions she was taught an extremely rigorous
curriculum containing several different languages, mathematics, literature and history. Though
most of these lessons, especially the ones in taught in Polish and pertaining to Poland, were

illegal. If it had been discovered she had been taking these illegal lessons her teachers and
family could have been arrested and exiled. This just shows the dedication she and her family
had in acquiring a proper education, this dedication showed prominently in her later
accomplishments.
At the young age of 15 Marie graduated first in her graduating class while receiving
many different academic awards. Though Marie was extraordinarily intelligent and dedicated
she was no able to attend university in Warsaw. This was due to the fact that there were no
universities in Warsaw that accepted women and her father did not have the money to send her or
her sister anywhere else to gain a higher education. She spent the next year travelling and
visiting family friends. She returned to Warsaw and began to tutor, which was one of the only
intellectual jobs available to women at the time.
Though higher education was banned for women during this time in Poland, she attended
an illegal university for women. This university was called the Flying University and they met
secretly in different places. When Marie was twenty-four she was able to move to Paris, there
she started her higher education. In 1893 she earned a degree in physics and year later a degree
in math. Shortly after earning these degrees she was able to meet her Pierre Curie, a chemist and
physicist. They married after Marie moved back to Warsaw then back to Paris.
Around this time Henri Bacquerel found that uranium left an impression on photographic
plates despite being protected by a protective envelope. Marie Curie decided to conduct more
research on this certain phenomena. She started handling different materials and substances to
better understand their radioactive effects. She identified both Polonium and Radium as
elements. Marie found that Polonium and Radium were both radioactive. Years earlier Pierre
and his brother had invented a device for measuring electric charges called the electrometer.

While using this device Marie was able to discover one of her most important discoveries, she
discovered that radiation came from atoms and was dependent on the quantity of uranium
present. This meant that radioactivity was not the result of chemical reactions but a result of the
properties within an element. Pierre was so interested and impressed with his wifes work that
he put his on research on hold while he assisted Marie with studying this. Together they coined
the term radioactivity.
Based on Maries thesis about radiology, Pierre was able to find the effect of radiology on
humans. He applied radium to his skin which created a burn then a wound. His findings created
what was called Curietherapy which was used to treat benign tumors. Marie studied the many
effects of radioactivity and contributed huge amounts to our modern findings and research on
radioactivity.
Marie and Pierre Curie went through many hardships during their times of research and
experimentation. The lived in an extremely small living space and their laboratory was even
less. It was an extremely small space with all of their equipment, materials and substances.
Their laboratory was cramped and the temperatures would get down to 6 degrees at times during
the summer. Despite their meager working conditions they still were enthralled and consumed
with the research of radioactivity and all its properties. Along with their living conditions they
had extremely poor health, this is attributed to their exposure to radioactivity in the elements and
substances they worked with. Neither of them would recognize that their work was the cause of
their ailments. Pierre died tragically after being run over in the streets. Marie lived more than
thirty years after Pierre but ultimately died from cancer due to exposure to radium.
Marie Curie was an extremely amazing woman who had many achievements throughout
her life. She paved the way for many women in the science and math fields. She received

numerous awards and eventually received two Nobel Prizes for her contributions and findings in
radioactivity and also the discovery of Polonium and Radium. She was extremely intelligent and
dedicated to researching in her field. She acquired seventeen degrees and did everything she
could to obtain as much education as she could, even if it was illegal to do so. Marie Curie was
an extraordinary woman who contributed extremely valuable concepts to our scientific
community.

Bibliography:

The Life and Legacy of Marie Curie by Sara Rockwell Yale Journal of Biology and

Medicine (2003) Pg. 167-169

Madame Curies Passion by Julie Des Jardins Smithsonian Magazine October 2011
A Nobel Prize Pioneer at the Panthon by Florence Raynal Modern American Poetry

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/mariecurie.htm
Marie Curie A Woman of Firsts by Linda Hedrick

https://www.ilab.org/eng/documentation/608-marie_curie_-_a_woman_of_firsts.html
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/mariecurie.html
The Discovery of Radioactivity
http://people.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/nuclear/discovery.html