22/3/2002
Marie Curie

The internationally renowned scientist Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland, in 1867. She was the fifth child of Bronsilawa and Wladyslaw, both of whom were teachers.

Perhaps inheriting her parents' academic affinity, the young Maria excelled in school, gaining a gold medal on completion of her secondary education. Despite this accolade however, the social norms of the time precluded women from further study in Poland. To overcome this, Maria made a deal with her sister Bronya - another brilliant student who yearned for further study. Maria would work as a governess to finance her sister's study of medicine abroad; in return, Bronya would finance Maria's studies once her own degree was completed. For both sisters their goal was an education at the Sorbonne, Paris.

It is a measure of the determination of both sisters that this improbable plan succeeded. In 1891 Maria Sklodowska went to Paris, beginning her university education at age 24. Despite a gap in study of 6 years she came first in the study of physical sciences in her first year and second in mathematical sciences the next. She also met another diligent, unassuming and brilliant scientist at this time - Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics, whom she would later marry. Their partnership would produce some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the century.

Following her marriage in 1894, Marie Curie worked alongside her husband to develop Henri Becquerel's discovery of the phenomenon that Marie would later name "radioactivity". Although often working in primitive conditions, this research led to the discovery of the elements of polonium and radium and to Marie's later struggle to obtain pure radium - a highly significant challenge that she later achieved. Unhindered by the birth of her first daughter, Irene, in 1897, and her appointment as a lecturer in physics to the École Normale Supérieure for girls in 1900, Marie Curie gained her doctorate in science 1903 - the first woman in Europe to do so. The importance of the Curies' research was recognised the same year when they shared with Becquerel the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of radioactivity. The Curies' second daughter, Eva, was born the following year.

Tragedy struck Marie in 1906 when Pierre was killed in a road accident. Having already succeeded him as Head of the Physics Laboratory, she was his natural successor as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had taught at the Sorbonne. She continued her research and in 1910 her fundamental treatise on radioactivity was published. In 1911 she was awarded a second Nobel Prize - this time for Chemistry - for the isolation of pure radium.

Throughout her research, Marie Curie had been particularly aware of the therapeutic value attached to this discovery. In 1914 she was appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, where these properties could be further researched. Throughout World War 1,with the help of her daughter Irène, she devoted herself to the development of X-radiography.

In 1918 the Radium Institute began to operate in earnest, soon becoming a universal centre for nuclear physics and chemistry. Following in her mother's footsteps, Irène Curie joined its staff. Again, like her mother, she would herself receive a Nobel prize, in 1935. Meanwhile, Marie Curie lectured in Europe and America and in 1922 was made a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. In 1932 she oversaw the inauguration of the Radium Institute in Warsaw, having been personally presented with one gram of radium by President Harding for use in the Institute's research. Marie's sister Bronya became the Institute's first director.

Shortly after this, Marie Curie fell ill. She died in 1934 from leukaemia, at that time an unforeseen consequence of her work with radioactivity. During her lifetime Marie Curie received numerous awards for her work. In 1995 the French Government awarded her with perhaps its highest posthumous honour when her ashes, together with those of Pierre, were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. Marie Curie was the first female physicist to gain international recognition and she remains one of the world's greatest scientific pioneers.