Marie Curie

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (born Maria Salomea Skłodowska on 7 November 1867 in Warsaw) was a physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two scientific fields, and the only person to win in two different sciences.^[1]

Early life and education

Curie was born in Warsaw, in what was then part of the Russian Empire. Her father was a teacher of mathematics and physics, and her mother was the head of a girls' school. After her mother's death from tuberculosis in 1878, Curie excelled in her studies but was barred from higher education because of her gender. She joined the underground "Flying University" before moving to Paris in 1891 to enroll at the Sorbonne.^[2]

Scientific work

In 1895 she married the physicist Pierre Curie. Working together, they investigated the radiation emitted by uranium compounds and, by 1898, had isolated two new elements: polonium (named after her homeland) and radium. The couple shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel for the discovery of radioactivity.

Later years and legacy

Pierre Curie died in a street accident in 1906; Marie Curie continued their research and was appointed to his professorship at the Sorbonne, becoming the first woman to hold the position. In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for the isolation of pure radium and the determination of its atomic weight. During the First World War she developed mobile radiography units to assist battlefield surgeons. She died on 4 July 1934 from aplastic anaemia, almost certainly caused by long-term exposure to radiation.^[3]