Marie Curie

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Polish-French scientist, a physicist and chemist, winning Nobel Prizes for both in 1903 and 1911 but not allowed in the French Academy of Science as she was female. When Curie was born, Poland was divided between Austria, Germany and Russia. The daughter and fifth child of two teachers, intellectuals and patriots, she learned young to resist the repression of Polish culture by small rebellions. When she was eight, a younger sister died of tuberculosis; two years later her mother died of the same disease. Her father lost his job at the state school, and turned the home into a boarding school. She needed to make a living so began to work as a governess. She fell in love at 18 with the son of the family for whom she worked but the parents objected to a marriage. After her initial anguish, Marie picked herself up and went on. With her wages, she sent her sister Bronia to Paris to put her through the Sorbonne. They planned that once Bronia was established, Marie would join her in Paris for her turn. After four years, in 1891 she joined her sister in Paris to study math, physics and chemistry at the Sorbonne. She proved a brilliant student with an early interest in the magnetic properties of steel. Within two years she received her license in science with the highest marks of her class. She was drawn to fellow scientist, Pierre Curie by their mutual interest in magnetism and devotion to science. They met at the home of a Polish physicist who was staying in Paris, and married on 7/26/1895 at a simple civic ceremony. Their early years were very hard. In 1898, after they discovered radium, Marie had a struggle of four years of toil which finally resulted in the extraction of one-tenth of a gram of radium from one ton of uranium mine waste, one of the epic stories of science. They had two daughters, the first, Irene, in 1897 and the second, Eva, in 1904. Irene became a chemist and Eva, a writer. The Curies worked together for 11 harmonious years, isolating radium and polonium. As well as being one of history's outstanding scientists, Marie lived the normal life of a wife and mother; a month after discovering radium, she carefully notes having made 14 pots of gooseberry jelly. Her letters show her very close and affectionate relationships with her father, brother and sisters, her daughters and many friends. On 8/19/1906, Marie was widowed in a sudden and tragic accident when Pierre was run over and killed by a dray in the street. With a life of study and research, largely in an academic environment, Curie delved into the nature of elements. She later held a chair in physics at the Sorbonne. Five years after Pierre's death, Marie had an affair with a longtime colleague, Paul Langevin, separated from his wife and four kids. His wife obtained several of their love letters and her bother, the editor of a right-wing newspaper, helped publish them on 11/04/1911. The press savaged her as being "unfeminine" and "attempting to destroy the French family." She was a foreigner, a libertine and a rationalist, a threat to God and nation. The publicity ended the relationship. In 1934, she was still working 16-hour days in her Paris lab, though often feeling overly tired. After having double cataracts removed, her eyesight was poor, her ears rang continuously and after handling radium for 35 years, her blood count was abnormal. The family took her into the Sanatorium, where Curie died of an aplastic pernicious anemia of rapid, feverish development from radiation poisoning on 7/04/1934, Savoy, France. The biography by her daughter Eve stresses her parent's unworldliness, the idealism that made them refuse to patent the process they developed of isolating radium, which could have made them wealthy. She tells of their distaste of politics, though they had to attempt the game to fit into the scientific community. She describes the shabby treatment they received at the hands of the establishment, especially the Academy of Sciences, which refused membership to both Curies, even after they had been awarded the Nobel Prize. Link to Wikipedia biography