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Marie Curie (1867-1934), born in Poland as Manya Sklodowska, is famous for her work on radioactivity. She won the Nobel Prize twice, first in 1903 (jointly with another two) for the discovery of radium and polonium , and again (by herself) in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium.
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Marie Curie (1867-1934), born in Poland as Manya Sklodowska, is famous for her work on radioactivity. She won the Nobel Prize twice, first in 1903 (jointly with another two) for the discovery of radium and polonium, and again (by herself) in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium.
For the work they did on radioactivity that led to the discovery of polonium and radium in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize. Pierre was killed in a traffic accident in 1906. Despite this loss, Marie continued her work on radioactivity and won a second Nobel Prize in 1911 for her work on radium.
The grief was paralyzing Marie. She left her children away until everything practical was arranged for. Marie did not cry; she did not talk; she acted like a stiff doll. She hated the flowers of the spring and the sun. She only wanted to scream like an animal. A few weeks after the funeral Marie started writing letters to Pierre in her diary.
Professor at Sorbonne After Pierre died, Marie Curie was appointed to take over the professorship at Sorbonne and to lecture in Pierre’s place. Marie remembered a statement that Pierre once said when he was ill: Whatever happens, even if you feel like a body that is deprived of its soul, it is our duty to continue the work, despite everything!
Marie was completely dedicated to her work at Sorbonne. For her daughters’ sake she bought a house on the countryside and hired a governess. Pierre’s father came along too as a support for Marie and to help with the children. In the summer vacations she brought the children to Poland and she taught them Polish. Irène was very much like her mother and she got more and more interested in her mother’s work. Eve on the contrary did not like the laboratory at all, since it always seized her mother. Irene is looking at her mother’s burnt fingers. Marie Curie and her two daughters, Irene and Eve Irene and her mother, Marie Curie, in a laboratory
Marie Curie’s many firsts: • She was the first to use the term radioactivity for this phenomenon. • She was the first woman in Europe to receive her doctorate of science. • In 1903, she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. • She was also the first female lecturer, professor and head of Laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1906).
Marie Curie’s many firsts: • In 1911, she won an unprecedented second Nobel Prize (this time in chemistry) for her discovery and isolation of pure radium and radium components. She was the first person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes. • She was the first mother-Nobel Prize Laureate of daughter-Nobel Prize Laureate. Her first daughter Irene Joliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1935). • She is the first woman that has been laid to rest under the famous dome of the Pantheon in Paris for her own merits.
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