Marie Curie - Biographical Marie Curie The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, Marie Curie Share this: Marie Curie - Biographical Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married.

She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914. See Also Article about the Curies Her early researches, together with her husband, were often performed under difficult conditions, laboratory arrangements were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood. The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896 inspired the Curies in their brilliant researches and analyses which led to the isolation of polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth, and radium. Mme. Curie developed methods for the separation of radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities to allow for its characterization and the careful study of its properties, therapeutic properties in particular. Mme.

Curie throughout her life actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and during World War I, assisted by her daughter, Irene, she personally devoted herself to this remedial work. She retained her enthusiasm for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in her native city - in 1929 President Hoover of the United States presented her with a gift of $ 50,000, donated by American friends of science, to purchase radium for use in the laboratory in Warsaw. Mme. Curie, quiet, dignified and unassuming, was held in high esteem and admiration by scientists throughout the world. She was a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay from 1911 until her death and since 1922 she had been a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. Her work is recorded in numerous papers in scientific journals and she is the author of Recherches sur les Substances Radioactives (1904), L'Isotopie et les Éléments Isotopes and the classic Traité' de Radioactivité (1910). The importance of Mme.

Curie's work is reflected in the numerous awards bestowed on her. She received many honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships of learned societies throughout the world. Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize. In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry , in recognition of her work in radioactivity. She also received, jointly with her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 and, in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science. For further details, cf. Biography of Pierre Curie . Mme. Curie died in Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4, 1934.

From Nobel Lectures , Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above. 100 Years Ago: Marie Curie Wins 2nd Nobel Prize - Scientific American Scientific American 100 Years Ago: Marie Curie Wins 2nd Nobel Prize The greatest woman scientist, twice recipient of the Nobel Prize Report Ad From Scientific American, November 25, 1911, Volume 105 FEMINISM very nearly won a great victory in the French Academy of Sciences on January 23rd, 1911, when, in the election of a successor to the deceased academician Gernez, Marie Sklodowska Curie was defeated by two votes. At a joint meeting of the five academies which compose the Institut de France, a majority had opposed the admission of women, as contrary to tradition, but each academy was left to decide the question for itself.

The Academy of Fine Arts had a few women members long ago but the Academy of Sciences has never admitted a woman. It was, perhaps, the opposition of the anti-feminists that induced Mme. Curie to apply as a candidate for the chair in the section of physics left vacant by Gernez, and formerly occupied by her husband and collaborator, Pierre Curie. In the preliminary grading of candidates Mme. Curie was placed alone, in the first grade, while her competitors, five eminent men of science, were assigned to the second grade. Mme. Curie, however, received only 28 of the 65 votes (the Academy consists of 66 members), while 30 votes were cast for Edouard Branly. There were good reasons for this choice, entirely apart from considerations of sex. Branly is a physicist of world-wide celebrity who, unlike Mme. Curie, has received few honors and emoluments. He invented the coherer for the detection of electric waves and to him Marconi’s first wireless message was addressed. Many of the academicians naturally desired to recognize the very important part played by their compatriot in the development of wireless telegraphy.

Moreover, Branly is sixty-four years old and this was his third candidacy, while Mme. Curie is only forty-three and had never before applied for admission. It is not customary to admit a candidate on the first application, and Mme. Curie’s chance of living until the next vacancy shall occur is greater than Branly’s. Who is this remarkable woman who so nearly surmounted these formidable obstacles? The dry and formal account of herself and her work which she submitted with her application, according to custom, is perhaps more eloquent than an exhaustive biography. Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw November 7th, 1867. She became a student in the University of Paris where she attained the degrees of licentiate in physics in 1893 and licentiate in mathematics in 1894. In 1896 she received a certificate of fitness for the secondary instruction of girls, and in 1900 became lecturer in physics in the Ecole normale superieure for girls in Sevres.

In 1903 she received the degree of doctor of physical science, in 1906 she became lecturer in general physics in the University of Paris, and in 1909 s he was promoted to the professorship of general physics, as successor to her lately deceased husband, Prof. Pierre Curie, to whom she was married in 1895. She is an honorary or foreign member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the London Chemical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Chemical Society, the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the Royal Swedish Academy and other learned bodies, and has received the honorary title of Doctor from the universities of Geneva and Edinburgh. In 1898 Mme. Curie, then thirty-one years of age, received the Gegner prize from the French Academy of Sciences, nominally for her extensive researches relating to the magnetic properties of iron and steel, although the report of the awarding committee also alludes, in terms of the highest commendation, to the researches in radio-activity which she had already begun, in co-operation with her husband, and to their recent discovery of the radio-active element which Mme.

Curie named Polonium, in honor of her native country. The Gegner prize was awarded to Mme. Curie again in 1300, and a third time in 1902, together with the Berthelot medal. In 1903 the Nobel prize for physical science was awarded, half to Mons. and Mme. Curie and half to Henri Becquerel, whose discovery of the spontaneous radio-activity of uranium ore formed the basis of all subsequent researches in radio-activity. Only a few days ago we heard the news that Mme. Curie has been honored with the Nobel prize a second time, on this occasion in the division of chemistry. The list of medals and prizes which have been awarded to Mme. Curie in foreign countries is too long to quote. In addition to the numerous researches in radioactivity which she made in collaboration with her husband, Mme. Curie has published a great many independent papers, and a volume, “Investigations of Radio-active Substances,”; in which the results of their co-operative researches, including the epoch-making discovery of radium, are set forth.

Radium and polonium are not the only fruits of this ideal marriage, which was blessed by the birth of two children who already give evidence of inheriting the genius of their parents. After the shocking and untimely death of Pierre Curie, who was killed by a truck on a Paris bridge, in 1906, at the age of fifty-seven, a large majority of his colleagues recommended to the ministry of public instruction the appointment of his widow and coadjutor as his successor. The result is that this gifted woman, the only one of her sex who has ever received this high honor, is now a full professor in the venerable Sorbonne. All who have seen Mme. Curie at work in her laboratory, or have listened to her lectures, have been impressed by her undemonstrative zeal, her abstraction from external disturbances and her aversion to sensational effects. The early life of Marie Sklodowska Curie is less well-known to the general public than the later phase, in which she has become famous. And yet there is a peculiar romantic, and indeed pathetic interest attached to the incidents of her youth. Her father was a distinguished physicist, and professor of chemistry at Warsaw, Poland.

Her mother died when the child was yet quite young. Marie grew up in her father’s laboratory, imbibing the spirit of scientific research, and acquiring that sureness of eye and skill of hand which is so indispensable to the worker in experimental science. It is no doubt largely to her very early initiation into the technique of laboratory work that her extraordinary ability in this direction must be ascribed. Marie’s apprenticeship was, however, brought to a rather early close by the pressure of necessity. As the daughter of an impecunious college professor, the eighteen-year-old girl set out to earn her own living as governess to the daughters of a Russian nobleman. But Providence had destined her for another fate. In one of those agitations which have been so common in the history of Russia, a patriotic society of students at Warsaw was brought under the scrutiny of the ever-suspicious government, and for fear of being compelled to testify against some of her father’s pupils, Marie migrated from her home country and took up her abode in Paris. There she lived for a time a life of the utmost privation. Her repeated efforts to obtain employment in one of the laboratories seemed to avail her nothing.

Finally she was allowed to perform some of the trivial offices in connection with the preparation of laboratory experiments. And once this meager foothold was gained, it was but a matter of days before the extraordinary faculties of the new assistant had attracted the attention and caused the amazement of the head of the department, Prof. Lippmann. The eminent scientist befriended the girl, and incidentally also introduced her to one of his most promising pupils, Pierre Curie, with whom she became associated in research, and later, in the bonds of wedlock. It was she who fanned to new endeavor the fagging spirits of her husband, in those moments of discouragement which are apt to come to all engaged in intense scientific research. And together they gained the undying trophies of fame, when, with the isolation of radium salts, the name of Curie suddenly rose to international renown. And then, not many years later, fell that terrible blow, separating the two who together had faced the hardships of everyday life, and in strangely perfect union had toiled, against much discouragement, to reap the precious harvest of scientific research. While crossing the street Prof.. Curie tripped and fell, and was instantly killed by a passing truck.

Thus in an evil hour France was bereft of one of her greatest physicists, the world of a genius, and Madame Curie If her life companion and husband. Her composure, upon receiving the terrible news, is commented upon by the Gaulois: “Nothing could have been more characteristic of the wonderful Madame Curie, than the coolness with which she received the news of her bereavement. There were no tears, no traces of grief. Over and over she repeated : ‘Pierre is dead.’’’ One fee1s that here perhaps the Frenchman, with his demonstrative temperament, somewhat misjudges this great woman. The deepest emotions are not always those that can find their vent through the common channels of physical expression. To us there seems something infinitely pathetic in the monotonous repetition of that simple and sad formula, as the mind that with the insight of a genius has successfully grappled with some of the most abstruse problems presented to the science of to-day in the realm of inanimate matter, is brought face to face with the great problem of life and death. Here all men are on a level, and impartially fate has dealt to this great genius as to us all life’s share of human sorrow.

Yet with unbroken spirit, and with renewed devotion she turns to continue now in loneliness, her great life work, her priceless gift to humanity. One can not help reflecting on the retribution dealt by fate to the Eastern monarchy-that makes life unendurable to the scholar of independent thought-in taking from her the woman who would have added the brightest laurel to Russia’s wreath of scientific attainment. Advertisement | The Life and Legacy of Marie Curie | Fiat Physica Blog The Life and Legacy of Marie Curie "We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. — Marie Curie" Marie Curie made history in 1903 when she became the first woman in history to receive the Nobel Prize in physics. Then, in 1911, she did it again when she won her second Nobel Prize, in chemistry. Born Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie is one of the greatest female scientists this world has ever seen. Marie’s parents were both teachers, but she took after her father, a math and physics and instructor.

He nurtured the importance of education and the sciences from an early age, and that passion continued into her adult years. After finishing secondary school, Marie’s options were limited due to the fact that she could not attend the male-only University of Warsaw. This led her to attend informal, secret classes in order to continue learning despite those barriers. Finally, in 1891 Marie was able to travel to France and enroll at the Sorbonne. It was there, in 1893, that she earned master’s degrees in physics and mathematics. After graduating, she searched for a lab to conduct studies on the magnetic properties of steel. It was during this search that she was introduced to French physicist Pierre Curie, who would become her partner in life and in research. To date, Curie is the only woman to win two Nobel Prizes, but her second win set her apart as the only scientist, male or female, to win two Nobel Prize awards. An amazing achievement for any scientist – but a particularly impressive one among women in STEM fields. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. These areas are grouped together due to their overlapping skill sets and intertwined knowledge base.

While Curie paved the way for women in STEM fields, they are still largely underrepresented. Men hold the majority of STEM jobs due to a lack of exposure and opportunities in the education of young women. Those two shortcomings are made clear in the fact that women are vastly outnumbered when it comes to winning prestigious scientific awards. Of the 357 people who have ever won a STEM-related Nobel Prize, only 16 of those recipients have been female. This lack of a strong female representation in STEM means that there are very few female scientists for today’s young girls to look up to. Again, this can be attributed to a severe lack of STEM education opportunities for women, keeping them from seeing the great potential and opportunities in these fields. Also, a lack of female STEM role models makes it unclear to girls as to how they might juggle the demands of a rigorous career in STEM fields with having a family. It’s crucial to support women in STEM so they can continue pursuing their passions without giving up their lives – and set an example for girls with an interest in these fields. One example of a program aiming to help women with this is the M. Hildred Blewett Scholarship.

This scholarship, awarded only to women in the field of physics, gives funding to those who have put their career on hold to start a family. The scholarship provides monetary resources for those women to then resume their research. Through funding opportunities like these, we not only improve the world in which we live, but we provide scientists with futures and ample opportunities. With programs such as this one and the Outstanding Young Physicist Award offered by the Lagrange Institute in partnership with the Pierre and Marie Curie Institute, we are building a world where young girls will have an abundance of strong female scientists like Marie Curie to look up to. Marie Curie showed the world that women can make a huge difference when given the opportunity to excel within their passions. By funding women in science, we open the floor to the next generation of female science icons. Further reading: Biography: Marie Curie: Blazing a Trail Marie Curie: Blazing a Trail Dan Cloer How little Manya Sklodowski (Marie Curie) became the first woman to earn the Nobel Prize in Physics, and the first person ever to earn a second Prize, is a fascinating story. In 1865, American T.S.C. Lowe invented the ice-making machine.

In 1866, Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, Ernst Haeckel coined the term ecology, and people considered cholera outbreaks to be God’s retribution for moral failure. Such were the times into which Vladislav and Bronislava Sklodowski’s fifth child was born in Warsaw, Poland. They affectionately nicknamed her Manya—a pet form of Maria—though affection appears to have been a scarce commodity in the Poland of 1867. Under the ever oppressive eye of Russian overseers, the infant’s father, a physics teacher, was closely watched, as were all the intelligentsia. In time, deeming it unsuitable for the Polish masses, the Russian supervisors began removing science from the school curriculum. As it was no longer appropriate for Professor Sklodowski to bring physics equipment from home for his classes, it remained in his study: barometers, shiny tubes and objects in glass cabinets. Even as a youngster, the curious Manya was fascinated by these baubles. Soon demoted from his position at the school, and with his wages and living allowance reduced as a result, Sklodowski attempted to ensure a continued income by investing his savings in a brother-in-law’s business. He lost it all.

The family was forced to move several times and eventually took in boarders—boys whom the professor fed, lodged and taught. Along with those boys came typhus, and in 1876 Manya’s eldest sister died. Her mother died two years later from chronic tuberculosis. Only then did 10-year-old Manya understand why her mother had never once kissed her. As a teenager Manya would often meet a girlfriend on the way to school. In the courtyard of the building where her friend lived stood a brass lion with a ring in its mouth; if her friend was not there waiting, Manya would lift the ring up over the lion’s head as a signal that she had gone on ahead. Her life would play out in the same fashion—moving ahead of others and blazing a trail—a trail that eventually led to the atomic bomb. Today we know this child not as Manya Sklodowska but as Nobel laureate Marie Curie . How little Manya became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, as well as the first person to earn a second Nobel Prize, is a fascinating story. Though her life of tragedy, sacrifice and diligence is extraordinary, the result of her scientific work radiates great irony.

In 1888, Manya’s father, now retired on a meager pension, accepted the cheerless job of reform school director. With it came an income that could be set aside for his youngest daughter’s formal education. But Manya, now 21, had lost interest in education. For the past three years she had lived as a governess in the country, earning money to support her older sister’s medical education in Paris. Moving back to Warsaw, however, she began to associate with the so-called floating university, a free-thinking youth underground. Girded with the patriotic hope of future Polish independence, Manya would secretly congregate with the youth of Russian Warsaw. “I still believe that the ideas which inspired us then are the only way to real social progress,” she later wrote. “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” Behind the clandestine front of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture, Manya was for the first time able to participate in scientific work at a makeshift laboratory.

“I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected,” she wrote. “At times I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success, at others I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience. But on the whole, though I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy, this first trial confirmed in me the taste for experimental research in the fields of physics and chemistry.” This wakening taste for research sparked her latent curiosity and propelled her to a life of science. In the autumn of 1891, the 24-year-old departed Poland on a fourth-class train ticket to Paris, and by 1894 she had earned degrees in physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne. She would soon become head of the physics laboratory there and go on to earn her doctorate in 1903. While seeking to find a workroom in which to carry out research in magnetism, Manya, called Marie by her French colleagues, met Pierre Curie, a professor at the School of Physics and Chemistry. His primary interest was crystal structure, but he found Marie fascinating as a scientist, someone totally driven and committed to her work.

On a research paper he sent to her, he annotated: “To Mlle Sklodovska, with the respect and friendship of the author, P. Curie.” According to Eve Curie’s 1937 biography of her mother, Pierre considered Marie a girl who “had the character and gifts of a great man”: genius, devotion, courage and nobility. When Marie returned to Poland for the summer of 1894, Pierre wrote constantly, wooing her back to Paris with a confused amalgam of je t’aime and scientific respect. “Your picture pleases me enormously. How kind of you to send it to me! I thank you with all my heart… . I want very much for us to become at least inseparable friends. Don’t you agree?” Marie later wrote that “for Pierre Curie there was only one way of looking at the future. He had dedicated his life to his dream of science: he felt the need of a companion who could live his dream with him.” She returned to Paris in October and married Pierre in July 1895. Daughters Irene and Eve would be born in 1897 and 1904 respectively.

Meanwhile in 1896, Henri Becquerel reported discovering radiative emissions from uranium salts. Using an apparatus designed by Pierre, Marie began to analyze and quantify these “Becquerel rays.” She discovered that the phenomenon, which she called radioactivity, was a characteristic of materials beyond uranium and thorium; indeed, it was a property of matter related to what we now know as nuclear change and the fission or transmutation of atoms. These initial discoveries edged open the door to the physics of the atom itself. For the next two years Marie worked at refining pitchblende, a uranium ore, into its radioactive constituents. Tons of ore was assayed and ground by hand in the rustic laboratory shed at the School of Physics. “One of our joys was to go into our workroom at night; we then perceived on all sides the feebly luminous silhouettes of the bottles or capsules containing our products. It was really a lovely sight and one always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like faint, fairy lights.” In 1898 the Curies published their first account of a new radioactive substance. They named the element polonium in honor of Poland.

Soon after, they isolated a second element, radium, a million times more radioactive than Becquerel’s original salts. For their pioneering work in radioactivity, Becquerel and the Curies were awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. But in his acceptance speech, Pierre warned that because radiation had the power to harm, “in criminal hands radium could become very dangerous, and here one can ask if humanity is at an advantage in knowing nature’s secrets, if it is mature enough to make use of them, or if this knowledge might not be harmful to it.” He concluded the speech by citing Alfred Nobel himself: “The example of the discoveries of Nobel is characteristic, as powerful explosives have enabled man to do wonderful work. They are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of great criminals who are leading the peoples towards war. I am one of those who believe with Nobel that mankind will derive more good than harm from the new discoveries.” The Royal Society of London followed up with one of its own highest honors, the Davy Medal. But to the Curies such recognition was of little consequence.

Pierre handed the medallion off to his young daughter (“Irene adores her big new penny”) while Marie shunned the publicity. Eve later wrote, “To look at this tall, ungainly man, carelessly dressed, leading his bicycle along some hollow road in Brittany, and the young woman who accompanied him, accoutered like a peasant girl, who could imagine them to be laureates of the Nobel Prize?” Even simple recognition seemed overwhelming to Marie, as Eve recalled: “I should have liked to feel that such prodigious success, a scientific reputation without precedent for a woman, had brought my mother some moments of happiness… . It was a childish hope. Marie, promoted to the rank of ‘the celebrated Mme Curie,’ was still to be happy at times, but only in the silence of her laboratory or the intimacy of her home.

Day after day, she made herself dimmer, more effaced, more anonymous, in order to escape from those who would have dragged her onto the stage, to avoid being the ‘star’ in whom she could never have recognized herself.” Over the next few years, already fighting illness and fatigue now known to have been caused by the radiation exposure inherent in her work, Marie went on to purify one decigram (0.1 g) of radium. This was enough to confirm that it was indeed an element and could be identified by weight and later by half-life. In recognition of this work, which in essence created the field of nuclear chemistry, Marie would become the first person (and to date the only woman) to win a second Nobel Prize, this time the 1911 prize in chemistry. In the interim, a radium “industry” had been born as scientists around the world sought to work with the substance. For example, the first radiation therapy, called curiethérapie in France, miraculously destroyed tumors when infected skin was exposed to radium. In addition to sparking the advent of radiology, radium was also used to make dials glow and even to power a rudimentary atomic clock.

Having created the processes of purification, the Curies could have reaped great wealth from their work. Humbly and true to form, they determined to publish their research completely without patents or the kinds of restrictions so prevalent today. “If our discovery has a commercial future,” they said, “that is an accident by which we must not profit.” It soon became apparent that the radiation resulted from atomic decay, the breakdown of atoms. Atomic energy was now at hand. In Eve’s biography, she relates the philosophy of scientific dedication learned from her parents; the Curie family continued in that service and science orientation. Irene, with her husband Fredrick Joliot, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their creation of radioactive elements. And as director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Eve’s husband H.R. Labouisse received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. But Marie and Pierre would not witness these honors. In 1906, Pierre Curie slipped on the wet pavement after a Parisian spring rain and fell under the wheels of a carriage carrying military uniforms. His forehead crushed, Pierre died instantly.

Marie was devastated: “They filled the grave and put sheaves of flowers on it. Everything is over, Pierre is sleeping his last sleep beneath the earth; it is the end of everything, everything, everything.” Marie soldiered on for another 18 years, finally succumbing to radiation-induced leukemia in 1934. Eleven years later, two atomic bombs fell on Japan; the triggering devices were made possible by polonium—the element she and Pierre had discovered and by which she had hoped to bring honor to her homeland. This is a revised and expanded version of the biographical sketch that appeared in the Spring 2001 issue. Selected References Eve Curie, Madame Curie: A Biography, translated by Vincent Sheean (1937). Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, translated by Charlotte and Vernon Kellogg (1923). Related Content Marie Curie | 175 Faces of Chemistry Marie Curie The first female recipient of a Nobel Prize, Marie Curie is also the only person to have received two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields. If asked to picture a female scientist, Marie Curie is most likely the first woman that comes to mind.

Born in Poland in 1867, she moved to Paris at the age of 24 to continue her studies at the Sorbonne, where her career in the physical sciences started. Jamie Gallagher discusses some of the difficulties she encountered during this time. Multiple Nobel Prize Laureate Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize and is the only person, male or female, to receive two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields. Together with her husband, Pierre, she was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in recognition of their study into spontaneous radiation. She continued her research into radioactivity after the death of her husband and in 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry. It was awarded in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry through the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element. Marie Curie died in 1934 but her scientific legacy continued beyond her death in the shape of her eldest daughter, Irene. Along with her husband Frederic Joliot, Irene was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements.

Marie Curie's contribution to the chemical sciences was further recognised when in 2011 when it was declared the International Year of Chemistry to coincide with the centenary of her being awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Words by Emily James, video by Jamie Gallagher Images © Science Photo Library Marie Curie Biography Facts Radium Nobel Prize Winner Resources Marie Curie Marie Curie committed her life to hard work and to innovation in the field of science. Despite having lived a life of hardship and great personal loss, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and then became the first woman to win two Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1867, Curie received science instruction from her father, a secondary-school teacher. Curie left Poland to study at the Sorbonne in Paris where she specialized in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. In 1895, she found a man who shared her passion for science. She married Pierre Curie, a physics professor who taught where she studied. Inspired by the work of Henri Becquerel, who discovered radioactivity in 1896, Curie, alongside her husband Pierre, delved deeper into radioactivity.

Their research and analyses led to the development of methods for isolating polonium and radium. In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie announced their discovery. This work serves as the foundation for much of what we know today about nuclear physics and chemistry. This innovation led to her and her husband earning one-half of the 1903 Nobel Prize, with Becquerel receiving the other half. Curie's life was not easy. She lost her oldest sister to sickness before age eleven. When she was twelve, she lost her mother to tuberculosis. Throughout her early career, she worked in very poor conditions. When not working on her research, Curie spent many hours teaching to support her family. She and husband Pierre had two daughters, Irene and Eve. In 1906, Pierre Curie, was killed in a street accident. Marie Curie didn't let misfortune or even tragedy stop her from the work she was meant to do. Her work ethic and dedication earned her a Doctor of Science degree. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne in Paris, and even took his place as a physics professor. She was the first woman to hold such a position.

Later, she would become Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the newly founded University of Paris. In 1911, Madam Curie received a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work in radioactivity. Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, is the only woman to win in two fields, and is the only person to win in multiple sciences. Her work was published and celebrated, and she achieved recognition and acclaim amongst her peers. In 1929, President Hoover awarded her with enough money to buy radium to use in her laboratory. Despite the fame and the awards, and perhaps because she had seen so much suffering throughout her life, Curie actively worked to find uses for radium to ease illnesses. In 1934, following a brief illness, Curie died in France. Her hard work and her momentum, even in the face of tragedy and great loss, earned her a legacy in the world of science forever securing her a place as one of the most famous women in history.

There is a secret you don't know Besides the factual Marie Curie biography presented above that presents the famous female scientist as a tragic figure, the fact is she did like to have fun every once in a blue moon. For instance, Marie Curie was known to throw down a mean Hokey Pokey at the local Kiwanis Club and she was the first person in history to give a moose a Barium enema. Marie Curie | Atomic Heritage Foundation Atomic Heritage Foundation Scientist, Nobel Prize Winner, Woman Scientist Marie Curie Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist. Curie was a pioneer in researching radioactivity, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. Curie never worked on the Manhattan Project, but her contributions to the study of radium and radiation were instrumental to the future development of the atomic bomb. Early Years Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland on November 7, 1867, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

University education for women was not available in Russia at the time, so Curie left to pursue her degrees at the University of Paris in 1891. The beginning of her scientific career was an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels. In Paris, she also met her husband Pierre Curie. While she tried to return to work in Poland in 1894, she was denied a place at Krakow University because of her gender and returned to Paris to pursue her Ph.D. Scientific Contributions Adopting the study of Henri Becquerel's discovery of radiation in uranium as her thesis topic, Curie began the systematic study of other elements to see if there were others that also emitted this strange energy. Within days she discovered that thorium also emitted radiation, and further, that the amount of radiation depended upon the amount of element present in the compound. Thus, she deduced that radioactivity does not depend on how atoms are arranged into molecules, but rather that it originates within the atoms themselves. This discovery is perhaps her most important scientific contribution. For their joint research into radioactivity, Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

As a team, the Curies would go on to even greater scientific discoveries. In 1898, they announced the discovery of two new elements, radium and polonium. Isolating pure samples of these elements was exhausting work for Marie; it took four years of back-breaking effort to extract 1 decigram of radium chloride from several tons of raw ore. In 1906, Pierre was killed in a traffic accident. Marie carried on their research and was appointed to fill Pierre's position at the Sorbonne, thus becoming the first woman in France to achieve professorial rank. In 1911, Marie won her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for isolating pure radium. Later Years During World War I, Curie served as the director of the Red Cross Radiology Service, treating over an estimated one million soldiers with her X-ray units. She traveled to the United States in 1921 to tour and raise funds for research on radium. She returned to Poland for the foundation laying ceremony for the Radium Institute, which opened in 1932 with her sister Bronislawa as its director.

Curie died in 1934 of radiation-induced leukemia, since the effects of radiation were not known when she began her studies. In 1995, her and Pierre's remains were moved to the Panthéon, the French National Mausoleum, in Paris. She was the first woman to receive that honor on her own merit. Marie Curie's Timeline 1867 Nov 7th Born in Warsaw, Poland. 1891 Received Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences from the University of Paris. 1898 Discovered polonium and radium with her husband, Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre Curie wedding photo.

Photo courtesy Association Curie Joliot-Curie Related Profiles The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911 Marie Curie The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911 Marie Curie, née Sklodowska Prize share: 1/1 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911 was awarded to Marie Curie "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element". Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation Share this: To cite this page MLA style: "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 17 Jan 2017. <

Question: In which category did Marie Curie win her second Nobel Prize?
Answer: Chemistry