Marie
Curie,
(1867-1934). Marie Curie was born Manya Sklodowska (slaw
DAWF skah), on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She was the
youngest of five children, four girls and one boy. Both parents were
teachers and as a result Marie developed a great appreciation for
education. Marie studied mathematics, chemistry and physics at the
Sorbonne, in France where she received her first degree in physics in
1893. The following year she received a second degree in mathematics.
It was during this time that Marie met and fell in love with Pierre
Curie. The two scientists were married in 1895 and had their first
child in 1897.
In 1898 Marie and Pierre announced the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. Five years later they shared the Nobel Prize in physics along with another French physicist, Antoine Henri Bacquerel, who had discovered natural radioactivity. MarieCurie was the first female recipient of a Nobel Prize.
In 1911 she received an unprecedented second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her work on radium and radium compounds. As a gift for her scientific discoveries, Marie was presented with a pendant containing radium. Not surprisingly, Marie died of leukemia caused by overexposure to radioactivity.
Designed by: Marie Crawford
References
Eve Curie (1937). Madame Curie.New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, Inc.
Pflaum, R. (1989). Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and Her World.New York: Doubleday.
Quinn, S. (1995). Marie Curie: A Life.New York: Simon and Schuster.