133 Marie Curie Facts About The Lady Who Discovered Radium

Marie Curie is remembered today for discovering radium and polonium, as well as her significant contribution to cancer research.

Marie Curie's maiden name actually was Maria Sklodowska, and she was also known as Manya by her family members and friends, but when she came to Paris, France later in life, she changed her name to Marie. Curie thought that scientific research was a public benefit and advocated for its use when she and her husband found that the radioactive element radium killed malignant cells more quickly than it killed healthy cells, implying that radiation may be utilized to cure tumors.

Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland, to an impoverished family of five children. Marie Curie enrolled at the Sorbonne University in Paris to study physics and mathematics, having developed a natural interest in the sciences as a result of her voracious need to learn. Marie Curie met Pierre Curie, a French physicist practicing in the city, in Paris in 1894, and they married a year later. Marie Curie began using the French version of her name, Marie, about this period. Read on to find out some more interesting and fun facts about this incredible woman!

Madame Curie died in the year 1934 on July 4 as a result of a health condition caused by prolonged exposure to radiation. Read on to know more about the life of a great scientist who continues to inspire new generations. Afterward, also check out facts on Beryllium atomic weight and why do atoms bond.

Fun Facts About Marie Curie

Marie Curie was an important figure in the scientific world of the early 20th century. Curie coined the term 'radioactivity' in the reporting of the discovery of radium. Einstein took it upon himself to write to Curie, expressing his admiration and inspiration for her determination and intelligence in a thoughtful letter.

Marie Curie had no clue how radiation phenomena might affect her health and she didn't mind walking about her lab having polonium and radium vials in her pockets. In her autobiography, she even mentioned keeping the radioactive substance in the open as she wrote that going into the workroom late at night was one of her favorite things to do where she could see the feebly glowing outlines of the containers of capsules carrying her products on all sides; the sparkling tubes appeared to be fairy lights. Marie Curie completed her first Nobel Prize-winning study after several years of hard work.

She and her husband worked in a makeshift lab that was an old shed outside the school where Curie worked as adequately sized labs were unable for their procedures. This shed was only a temporary structure that did not offer complete protection from rain or other weather. In truth, when chemist Wilhelm Ostwald initially visited the facility, he mistook it for a prank. Even two centuries later, her notebooks remain potentially radioactive. They're now kept in lead-lined boxes and are expected to be radioactive for yet another 1,500 years.

Marie and Pierre Curie took part in studies of Eusapia Palladino, an Italian medium who stated she could communicate with the dead. They visited a series of séances two years after obtaining the Nobel Prize in Physics. Pierre Curie seemed to believe that some of Palladino's exploits, such as levitating things such as tables, were real, whereas Marie wasn't too convinced. Marie Curie had barely been a double Nobel Prize winner for a few years when she began to explore trading her medals. Curie volunteered to have her two Nobel Prizes melted down when France issued a gold appeal to assist the war effort at the commencement of World War I.

Post-World War I, Marie Curie set out on a new fundraising expedition, this time to finance her Paris and Warsaw research facilities. Irène and Frederic Joliot-Curie developed artificial radioactivity at Curie's radium institute, while Marguerite Perey discovered a new element, francium.

The University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute established the Institut du Radium, a massive laboratory for Maria Skodowska-Curie, in 1909. These institutions, which are currently known as Institut Curie, are still employed for important cancer therapy research.

Facts About Marie Curie's Accomplishments

Marie also noted that specimens of pitchblende, a material containing uranium ore, were far more radioactive than those of pure uranium. Pierre and Marie Curie began searching for the mysterious element.

They crushed up pitchblende specimens, dissolved them in acid, and started to isolate the various elements contained using normal analytical chemical procedures of the day. She contacted an Austrian business that extracted uranium from pitchblende for industrial use and purchased many tons of the useless waste product, which was far more radioactive than that of the actual pitchblende and was much cheaper. Marie ultimately isolated radium (as radium chloride) in 1902, estimating its atomic weight to be 225.93. The route to the discovery had been lengthy and difficult.

In 1906, after her husband died in a car accident, Marie was assigned to Pierre's seat at the Sorbonne, establishing her as the first woman professor of this French university. She had become the first woman in France to receive a Ph.D. just three years before. Marie Curie contributed two new radioactive elements to the periodic table: radium and polonium.

Marie Curie's scientific career developed due to her abilities to monitor, deduce, and anticipate. She is also the first woman to generate such an impact on science. Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903. They received this Nobel Prize in physics together with Henri Becquerel, for their collaborative, albeit independent, work on radioactivity. Marie Curie's perseverance and extraordinary efforts earned her a second Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911. The second Nobel Prize was for developing a method of detecting radioactivity.

She is also known as the woman to win two Nobel Prizes in two distinct fields. Throughout World War I, Marie Curie focused on developing compact, mobile X-ray equipment that might have been used to examine casualties near the front lines. The technique Marie Curie created for the 'Petits Curies' is identical to that utilized today in fluoroscopy and it is a powerful X-ray system that allows doctors to analyze moving pictures in the body, such as the pumping movement of the heart or the motion of swallowing.

Marie Curie's fame has prompted her to be included in various films, including 'Radioactive in the Year 2020'. 'Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge' was released in 2016, 'Marie Curie: More Than Meets the Eye' was released in 1997, and 'Madame Curie' was released in 1943. On the instructions of French President Mitterrand, Marie and Pierre Curie were reinterred at the Pantheon, the Paris mausoleum designated by the French government for France's most respected deceased, in 1995. Marie Curie was the first female to be inducted into the Pantheon for her own contributions.

Facts About Marie Curie's Childhood

Maria Sklodowska was the fifth and youngest daughter of two teachers from Poland. Her parents placed strong importance on education and insisted that all of their children, especially their girls, have an excellent education both at home and at school.

Marie Curie had a governess after her mother passed away and her father was unable to take care of her. She read and studied on her own time to satisfy her need for knowledge. This was a passion that Marie Curie never abandoned.

Because she lacked the financial means to pursue a formal higher education, being a teacher, the only option that would allow her to be self-sufficient, was hardly a possibility. Marie Curie seized the chance when her sister gave her an apartment in Paris so she could attend university, and she relocated to France in 1891.

Facts About Marie Curie's Education

Maria received science training from her father and graduated first in her class when she was 15 years old.

Maria had wanted to attend the University of Warsaw alongside her sister, Bronia, after graduating from high school. Because the institution did not admit female students, the siblings enrolled at Flying University, a Polish college that did admit female students. At the time, it was still unlawful for women to pursue higher education, so the college relocated often to evade notice by authorities.

Maria relocated to Paris in 1891 to reside with her sister, whereupon she enrolled in the Sorbonne to further her studies. Curie did her own studies on uranium rays and determined that they stayed consistent regardless of the uranium's state or shape. She hypothesized that the invisible rays were caused by the element's atomic structure.

The science of atomic physics was founded on this innovative notion. Marie Curie's decades of exposure left her chronically unwell and practically blind from cataracts; eventually, Marie Curie died in 1934 at the age of 67 from either severe anemia or leukemia. She never truly admitted that her job with radioactive materials had destroyed her health. Her legacy lives on decades after her death and continues to inspire scientists from across the world to work for the betterment of humanity.

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