MARIE CURIE- THE FIRST FEMALE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

Akanksha Pundir
Sep 5, 2018 · 3 min read
Madame Curie

Marie Sklodowska (later Curie) was born in Warsaw in 1867, at a time when Poland was fighting a war against the Russian Empire. Her father and mother were both teachers. The youngest of five siblings. Her family had tried to make a stand against the oppression of their people and had subsequently lost all of their wealth and property due to their involvement in a rebel Polish nationalist society.

Maria herself worked in the secret underground “free university” as a teenager, where she went around and read to Polish women who were working in factories in an effort to try and educate them to do something awesome with their lives. Women were not allowed at University at that time and Maria had to work hard and save enough to go to Paris to study.

In 1885 she made an arrangement with her sister Bronia. Maria would work as a governess (teaching a wealthy family’s children in their own home) and she would support Bronia while she studied at University. Two years later, Bronia found the stress of studying too much to handle, she exchanged places with her sister and supported Maria while she went to University.

In 1898 Marie and her husband Pierre isolated an element they called polonium (after Poland). And then another called radium. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Henri Becquerel. In 1905 Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn vehicle. However, after his death Marie was offered his post as Professor of Physics at Sorbonne University. In 1911, Marie Curie was given the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Marie Curie is, incidentally, the first person in the world who has won two Nobel Prizes for her work in two different disciplines of science.

While this is a huge achievement for anyone to accomplish, it’s also important to keep in mind the fact that Madame Curie was winning Nobel Prizes for working with radioactive materials back in 1900, a time when women couldn’t even vote! In fact, there are 5 Nobel Prizes in the family- two of hers, one of her husband Pierre Curie, another one won by her daughter- Irene Joliot-Curie and one by Irene’s husband Fredric Juliot-Curie. In the history of the Nobel award, 66% of all female laureates of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were Curies.

When World War One broke out in Europe, Marie Curie left her post, donated her and her husband’s gold Nobel Prize medals to be melted down to support the war effort, jumped in a mobile radiation therapy truck, and drove out to the battlefield to help the wounded and dying men in the trenches. She used gamma rays to try and alleviate the pain of battle-wounded soldiers (using a process that was essentially the beginning of chemotherapy), and won the Legion of Honor from the French government for her efforts.

However, by 1929, Marie Curie’s health was failing and eventually she was diagnosed with leukaemia and passed away at 66 years of age on July 4, 1934.

I heard the story of an American newspaperman who tracked the Curies down to the remote cottage in Brittany once where they were vacationing. He found a rather dowdy woman sitting outside the door. “Are you the housekeeper?” he began.

“Yes.”

“Is your mistress inside?”

“No.”

“Will she be back soon?”

“I don’t think so.”

The reporter sat down. “Can you tell me something confidential about your mistress?” he went on.

“Madame Curie has only one message that she likes to be given to reporters,” said Marie Curie.

“That is: be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”

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