Strawberreis

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. She received an education in schools where she lived and some scientific experience from her father. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she got her Licentiateships in Physics and Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married. She was with her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, she got her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, when Pierre Curie died in 1906, and she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences. It was the first time a woman had been given this position. She was also given Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris.

The researches with her husband were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood. Henri Becquerel founded radioactivity in 1896 that inspired the Curies in their researches and analyses which led to the isolation of polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth. Curie made methods for the separation of radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities to allow for its characterization and the careful study of its properties, therapeutic properties in particular.

Marie Curie supported the use of radium to relieve suffering during World War I, with her daughter Irene; she personally involved herself to remedial work. She had enthusiasm for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in her native city - in 1929 President Hoover of the United States presented her with a gift of $ 50,000 donated by American friends of science, to purchase radium for use in the laboratory in Warsaw.

The importance of Marie Curie's work was reflected in the numerous awards given to her. She received many honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships of learned societies throughout the world. Together...