Accomplishments of Marie Curie

Physicist and chemist Marie Curie is the only scientist to receive Nobel prizes in two different sciences. She was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland, then a part of the Russian Empire. She later took citizenship of France. Her achievements in various fields of science, earned her international acclaim and her name found an important place in the list of world famous women scientists. Let us look at the accomplishments of this notable woman scientist Marie Curie.

Accomplishments of Marie Curie

During the early years of her life, Marie Curie (maiden name, Maria Sklodowska) had to face several difficulties on financial grounds. She graduated from a female gymnasium in 1883 and spent the following year with her relatives. She was always enthusiastic about learning new things and learned many of them from her parents.

Maria decided to send her elder sister Bronislawa to Paris for medical studies and financially supported her education by making an earning. She served as a governess to a lawyer's family in Krakow, then to a landed family in Ciechanow, and later to the Zorawskis. Till the fall of 1891, she studied in the Flying University, an underground educational enterprise in Warsaw and underwent training in a laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture.

Following 1891, Marie Curie began studying math, physics and chemistry at the University of Paris in France. She had to earn while learning, which she did during the evenings. She obtained a degree in physics in 1893 and a degree in mathematics in 1894. In 1985, she married Pierre Curie, also a well-known scientist.

The year 1896 witnessed the discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel. Marie Curie chose the uranium rays as her field of research. Using the Curie electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays give conductivity to the air surrounding them. She single-handedly discovered that the activity of uranium compounds depends on the quantity of uranium present in them. She discovered the radioactive nature of pitchblende and chalcolite, two minerals of uranium. She also discovered that thorium was a radioactive element.

In 1898, she announced the discovery of an element, which she named polonium. During the same year, on December 26, the Curies declared to have discovered the existence of radium. Marie Curie and her husband are best known for their discovery of radium. However, Marie was able to isolate the radium metal only in 1910, after subjecting the radium salt to complex processes like differential crystallization. Unfortunately, she had lost her husband four years before this accomplishment of hers.

In 1903, Marie received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris. Later that year, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. For the discovery of elements like radium and polonium, Marie received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. She was the proud winner of the Davy Medal in 1903 and the Matteucci Medal in 1904. She received honorary doctorates from a number of universities.

The adverse effects of radiation were not known during the time the Curies were carrying out the potentially risky research on radioactive elements. Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934, of over exposure to radiation for long years. Her death meant the loss of one of the most prominent figures in the field of science.