Biography
Maria Sklodovskaya-Curie is a Polish scientist who opened the chemical elements of radium and polonium.
Maria was born 07.11.1867 in Warsaw. He is the fifth and youngest child of the teachers of Bronislava and Vladislav Sklodovsky. Senior Brothers and Sisters Mary (which in the family called Mania) - Sophia (1862-1881), Joseph (1863-1937, doctor-therapist), Bronislav (1865-1939, doctor and first-director "Radia Institute") and Helena (1866 -1961, teacher and public figure). The family lived poorly.
When Mary was 10 years old, her mother died from tuberculosis, and his father was dismissed for the propaganic sentiment and was forced to take more low-paid positions. Mother's death, and soon and sisters of Sofia, was the reason that the girl refused Catholicism and became agnostic.
At 10 years old, Maria began to attend a boarding school, and then a gymnasium for girls, which she graduated with a gold medal. Maria could not get a higher education, since only men accepted the Universities of Poland. Then Maria and Sister Bronislav decided to go to the courses of the underground volatile university, where women accepted. Maria proposed to learn in turn, helping each other with money.
The first to the university entered Bronislav, and Maria got a governess. At the beginning of 1890, Bronislav, who married a doctor and activist of Casher Dluska, invited Maria to move to her to Paris.
To accumulate money for training in the capital of France, Sklodovskaya required a year and a half - for this Maria again began to work with a governess in Warsaw. At the same time, the girl continued to study at the university, as well as began a scientific internship in the laboratory, which was led by her cousin Yuzef Boguski, Assistant Dmitry Mendeleev.
The science
At the end of 1891, Sklodovskaya moved to France. In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she will be called later) rented the attic in the house near the University of Paris, where the girl studied physics, chemistry and mathematics. Life in Paris was not easy: Maria often missed, lost consciousness from hunger and did not have the opportunity to buy warm winter clothes and shoes.
The warehouse studied in the afternoon, and in the evening she taught, earning a living penny. In 1893, Marie received a degree in physics and began working at the industrial laboratory of Professor Gabriel Lippman.
By order of the industrial organization, Maria began to explore the magnetic properties of different metals. In the same year, the Sklodovskaya occurred with Pierre Curie, who became not only her colleague in the laboratory, but also his spouse.
In 1894, Sklodovskaya arrived for the summer in Warsaw to see the family. She was still feeding the illusions that she was allowed to work in his homeland, but the girl was denied in Krakow University - only men took a job. Sklodovskaya returned to Paris and continued to work on the PhD dissertation.
Radioactivity
Impressed by two important discoveries of Wilhelm X-ray and Henri Becquer, Marie decided to study uranium rays as a possible topic for the dissertation. To study samples, the Curie's spouse used innovative technologies for those years. Subsidies to research scientists received from metallurgical and mining companies.
Without having a laboratory, working in the storage room of the institute, and then in the street barn, for four years scientists managed to recycle 8 tons of uraniation. The result of one experiment with samples of ore brought from the Czech Republic was the assumption that scientists deal with another radioactive material in addition to uranium. Researchers revealed a fraction, several radioactive, rather than pure uranium.
In 1898, Curi opened radium and polonium - the latter was called in honor of Marie's Motherland. Scientists decided not to patent their discovery - although it could bring spouses a lot of additional funds.
Between 1898 and 1902, Curie was published jointly and individually, a total of 32 scientific articles, including one, in which it was reported that when exposed to radium, tumor-forming cells were destroyed faster than healthy cells.
In 1910, Mary and French scientist Andre Debierne turned out to highlight pure metal radium. After 12 years of experiments, scientists finally managed to confirm that radium is an independent chemical element.
In the summer of 1914, the Radium Institute was founded in Paris, and Maria became the head of separation of the use of radioactivity in medicine. During the First World War, mobile radiographic installations were invented for the treatment of wounded Curies, called "Petites Curies" ("Small Curie"). In 1915, Curie came up with hollow needles containing "radium emanation" - a colorless radioactive gas released by the radium (subsequently identified as radon), which was used to sterilize infected tissues. More than a million wounded military successfully underwent treatment with the application of these technologies.
Nobel Prize
In 1903, the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden awarded Chet Curie and Henri Beququel Nobel Prize in Physics for achievements in studies of radiation phenomena. At first, the Committee intended to celebrate only Pierre and Becquakel, but one of the members of the Committee and the defender of the rights of women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gustav Mittag Lefeforg, warned Pierre about this situation. After his complaint, Mary's name was added to the list of those award.
Marie is the first woman who received the Nobel Prize. The fee allowed the spouses to hire a laboratory assistant and equip the laboratory with appropriate equipment.
In 1911, Marie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and became the first in the world twice the laureate of this premium. Maria also was awarded 7 medals for scientific discoveries.
Personal life
While still a governess, Maria fell in love with the son of the hostess of the family, Kazimaj Loravsky. Parents of the young man were against his intentions to marry poor Sklodovskaya, and Kazimezh could not resist the will of the elders. The gap was extremely painful for both, and Loravsky to old age regretted his decision.
The main love of the life of Mary was Pierre Curie, a physicist scientist from France.
Mutual interest in natural sciences united young people, and in July 1895, lovers got married. Young abandoned the religious service, and instead of the wedding dress, Sklodovskaya put on a dark blue suit in which she later worked in the laboratory.
The spouses had two daughters - Irene (1897-1956), a chemist scientist, and Eve (1904-2007) - a musical and theater critic and writer. Maria hired Polish governess in order to train girls by his native language, and also often sent them to Poland to her grandfather.
Curie's spouses had two common hobbies, in addition to science: travel abroad and long-lasting cycling - preserved photos of spouses standing next to bicycles purchased for a bridal gift of a relative. In Pierre Sklodovskaya found love, and a better friend, and a colleague. Someone's spouse (Pierre asked the horse crew in 1906) was the cause of the hardest depression Marie - only a few months later, a woman was able to continue working.
In 1910-11, Curie maintained a romantic relationship with Pierre's student, physician by Lanzhen, married at that time. In the press about Curie began to write as a "Jewish deliberation". When the scandal broke out, Maria was at a conference in Belgium. Upon returning before his house, Curie discovered an angry crowd-woman with daughters had to hide from her girlfriend, writer Camilla Marbo.
Death
On July 4, 1934, 66-year-old Marie died in the sanatorium Sansenlemos in Passy, in the east of France. The cause of death was aplastic anemia, which, according to the physicians, was caused by a long exposure to the radiation on the body of a woman.
The fact that ionizing radiation has a negative impact, was not known in those years, so many experiments were conducted by Curi without security measures. Maria wore tubes with radioactive isotopes in his pocket, kept them in the drawer of their table and was exposed to X-rays from unshielded equipment.
Radiation has caused many chronic Curie diseases - at the end of life she was almost blind and suffered from kidney disease, but the woman never thought about changing the dangerous work. Curie buried in the cemetery in the town of CO, next to the grave of Pierre.
Sixty years later, the remains of the spouses were transferred to Paris Pantheon, the tomb of the outstanding people of France. Maria is the first woman, awarded burial in Pantheon for his own merit (the first became Sophie Bertlo, buried with her husband, physico-chemist Marsen Bertlo).
Interesting Facts
- In 1903, Curie's spouses were invited to the Royal Institute of Great Britain to make a report on radioactivity. Women were not allowed to speak with speeches, so the report provided only Pierre.
- The French presses hypocritically insulted Curie, pointing to her atheism and the fact that she was a foreigner. However, after receiving the first Nobel Prize about Curie began to write as a heroine of France.
- The word "radioactivity" was invented by Curie.
- Curie became the first female professor of the University of Paris.
- Despite the huge assistance during the war years, Marie did not receive official gratitude from the French government. In addition, immediately after the start of hostilities, Maria tried to sacrifice his gold medals to support the French army, but the National Bank refused to accept them.
- A student Curie Margarita Pershey became the first woman chosen to the French Academy of Sciences - this happened in 1962, more than half a century after Curie made an attempt to get into this scientific organization (instead of Eduar Branley, an inventor who helped Gulielmo Marconi was chosen to develop Wireless telegraph).
- Among the disciples of Curi are the four Nobel Prize laureate, including the daughter of Irene and her spouse Frederick Jolio-Curie.
- The records and documents who led Maria in the 1890s are considered too dangerous for processing due to the high level of radioactive contamination. Even the cookbook of Curie radioactive. Paper scientists are stored in lead boxes, and those who want to work with them have to wear special protective clothing.
- In honor of Curie, a chemical element - Curi was named, several universities and schools, the center of oncology in Warsaw, asteroid, geographical objects and even Clematis flower; Her portrait decorate banknotes, stamps and coins of different countries of the world.