Who she was
Marie Curie was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867. Women could not attend university in Russian-ruled Poland, so she worked as a governess to save money and, in 1891, moved to Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne. There she met the physicist Pierre Curie, whom she married in 1895.
Key contributions
Measuring radioactivity. In 1896 Henri Becquerel found that uranium salts give out invisible rays. Marie Curie chose these rays as her doctoral topic. Using a sensitive electrometer built by Pierre and his brother, she showed that the intensity of the rays depended only on the amount of uranium, not on its chemical form. She concluded that the radiation came from the atoms themselves, a revolutionary idea, and she coined the word radioactivity.
Two new elements. The uranium ore pitchblende was far more radioactive than its uranium content could explain. Marie and Pierre Curie reasoned that it must contain unknown, intensely radioactive elements. By dissolving the ore and separating it chemically, then measuring the radioactivity of each fraction, they discovered polonium (named after her homeland) and radium in 1898.
Isolating radium. To prove radium was a real element, she processed tonnes of pitchblende residue by hand in a leaky shed. By 1902 she had about a tenth of a gram of radium chloride, enough to measure the atomic mass of radium. In 1910 she isolated radium as a metal.
Key idea
Curie’s great insight was that radioactivity is a property of atoms, not of molecules or chemical reactions. This opened the way to nuclear physics and to the discovery that atoms are not indivisible.
Prizes and legacy
She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alone, for the discovery of polonium and radium. She remains the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. During the First World War she equipped vehicles with X-ray machines and trained operators, helping surgeons treat more than a million wounded soldiers.
Her work also had a cost: the dangers of radiation were not understood, and she died in 1934 of aplastic anaemia. Her notebooks are still radioactive today and are kept in lead-lined boxes. The element curium (1944) and the old unit of radioactivity, the curie, are named in honour of Marie and Pierre Curie.
Connections to your lessons
Her work is the foundation of the lessons on radioactive decay (alpha, beta and gamma radiation) and nuclear medicine (the first radiotherapy used radium).
Timeline
- 1867Born in Warsaw, the youngest of five children of two teachers.
- 1891Moves to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, since women could not attend university in Russian-ruled Poland.
- 1893Graduates in physics, first in her class; graduates in mathematics the following year.
- 1895Marries the physicist Pierre Curie.
- 1898With Pierre, announces two new radioactive elements: polonium (July), named after Poland, and radium (December).
- 1902After processing tonnes of pitchblende residue, obtains about a tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride and measures the atomic mass of radium.
- 1903Receives her doctorate and shares the Nobel Prize in Physics.
- 1906Pierre is killed in a street accident; she takes over his teaching post, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne.
- 1910With André Debierne, isolates radium as a pure metal.
- 1911Wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, becoming the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.
- 1914The Radium Institute in Paris is completed; in the First World War she organizes mobile X-ray units ("petites Curies") for field hospitals.
- 1934Dies of aplastic anaemia, almost certainly caused by years of radiation exposure.
- 1995Her remains are moved to the Panthéon in Paris, the first woman honoured there for her own achievements.
Sources and further reading
Explore next
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
1910–1994
Dorothy Hodgkin (1910–1994) used X-ray crystallography to solve the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin, and won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Tu Youyou
born 1930
Tu Youyou (born 1930) led the team that discovered artemisinin in 1971–1972, inspired by an ancient Chinese text, and won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Spotted a mistake? Let us know and we'll fix it.