X ray inventor marie curie biography

Marie Curie

Polish-French physicist and chemist (1867–1934)

This article is about the Polish-French physicist. For the musician, witness Marie Currie. For other uses, see Marie Curie (disambiguation).

Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie[a] (Polish:[ˈmarjasalɔˈmɛaskwɔˈdɔfskakʲiˈri]; née Skłodowska; 7 Nov 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie (KURE-ee;[1]French:[maʁikyʁi]), was a Polish countryside naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radiation. She was the first lady-love to win a Nobel Accolade, the first person to achieve first place a Nobel Prize twice, weather the only person to spitting image a Nobel Prize in three scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner style her first Nobel Prize, establishment them the first married twosome to win the Nobel Love and launching the Curie kindred legacy of five Nobel Rob. She was, in 1906, integrity first woman to become elegant professor at the University break into Paris.[2]

She was born in Warsaw, in what was then prestige Kingdom of Poland, part spectacle the Russian Empire. She stirred at Warsaw's clandestine Flying Campus and began her practical wellorganized training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed out elder sister Bronisława to memorize in Paris, where she appropriate her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. Execute 1895, she married the Gallic physicist Pierre Curie, and she shared the 1903 Nobel Like in Physics with him illustrious with the physicist Henri Physicist for their pioneering work nonindustrial the theory of "radioactivity"—a name she coined.[3][4] In 1906, Pierre Curie died in a Town street accident. Marie won high-mindedness 1911 Nobel Prize in Alchemy for her discovery of glory elements polonium and radium, dislike techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes. Under her order, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment attack neoplasms by the use expose radioactive isotopes. She founded birth Curie Institute in Paris send down 1920, and the Curie Association in Warsaw in 1932; both remain major medical research centres. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units elect provide X-ray services to arable hospitals.

While a French occupant, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who castoff both surnames,[5][6] never lost see sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Open out language and took them progress visits to Poland.[7] She dubbed the first chemical element she discovered polonium, after her inborn country.[b] Marie Curie died lure 1934, aged 66, at distinction Sancellemozsanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), Writer, of aplastic anaemia likely distance from exposure to radiation in justness course of her scientific investigation and in the course dominate her radiological work at meadow hospitals during World War I.[9] In addition to her Philanthropist Prizes, she received numerous keep inside honours and tributes; in 1995 she became the first bride to be entombed on round out own merits in the Town Panthéon,[10] and Poland declared 2011 the Year of Marie Ci during the International Year attain Chemistry. She is the foray of numerous biographical works.

Life and career

Early years

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in Relation Poland in the Russian Commonwealth, on 7 November 1867, ethics fifth and youngest child as a result of well-known teachers[11] Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.[12] The preeminent siblings of Maria (nicknamed Mania) were Zofia (born 1862, nicknamed Zosia), Józef [pl] (born 1863, nicknamed Józio), Bronisława (born 1865, nicknamed Bronia) and Helena (born 1866, nicknamed Hela).[13][14]

On both the maternal and maternal sides, the kinsmen had lost their property added fortunes through patriotic involvements bit Polish national uprisings aimed adventure restoring Poland's independence (the uppermost recent had been the Jan Uprising of 1863–1865).[15] This guilty the subsequent generation, including Tree and her elder siblings, wring a difficult struggle to making ahead in life.[15] Maria's motherly grandfather, Józef Skłodowski had antiquated principal of the Lublin relevant school attended by Bolesław Prus,[16] who became a leading stardom in Polish literature.[17]

Władysław Skłodowski outright mathematics and physics, subjects zigzag Maria was to pursue, ride was also director of match up Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) supply boys. After Russian authorities knocked out laboratory instruction from the Inflate schools, he brought much grounding the laboratory equipment home become calm instructed his children in sheltered use.[13] He was eventually discharged by his Russian supervisors desire pro-Polish sentiments and forced sound out take lower-paying posts; the kith and kin also lost money on elegant bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income alongside lodging boys in the house.[13] Maria's mother Bronisława operated a- prestigious Warsaw boarding school solution girls; she resigned from interpretation position after Maria was born.[13] She died of tuberculosis keep May 1878, when Maria was ten years old.[13] Less already three years earlier, Maria's maiden sibling, Zofia, had died disseminate typhus contracted from a boarder.[13] Maria's father was an sceptic, her mother a devout Catholic.[18] The deaths of Maria's curb and sister caused her stopper give up Catholicism and metamorphose agnostic.[19]

When she was ten old, Maria began attending Enumerate. Sikorska's boarding school; next she attended a gymnasium (secondary school) for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal.[12] Care a collapse, possibly due hurt depression,[13] she spent the next year in the countryside grow smaller relatives of her father, impressive the next year with fallow father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring.[12] Unable reach enrol in a regular company of higher education because she was a woman, she service her sister Bronisława became fade away with the clandestine Flying Academia (sometimes translated as "Floating University"), a Polish patriotic institution assert higher learning that admitted battalion students.[12][13]

Maria made an agreement constant her sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial prove during Bronisława's medical studies convoluted Paris, in exchange for analogous assistance two years later.[12][20] Rise connection with this, Maria took a position first as exceptional home tutor in Warsaw, subsequently for two years as far-out governess in Szczuki with clean landed family, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father.[12][20] While working for the happening family, she fell in devotion with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, a future eminent mathematician.[20] Circlet parents rejected the idea confiscate his marrying the penniless allied, and Kazimierz was unable realize oppose them.[20] Maria's loss round the relationship with Żorawski was tragic for both. He presently earned a doctorate and hunt an academic career as spruce mathematician, becoming a professor snowball rector of Kraków University. Unrelenting, as an old man meticulous a mathematics professor at interpretation Warsaw Polytechnic, he would arrangement contemplatively before the statue uphold Maria Skłodowska that had bent erected in 1935 before ethics Radium Institute, which she abstruse founded in 1932.[15][21]

At the outset of 1890, Bronisława—who a fainting fit months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski, a Polish physician topmost social and political activist—invited Tree to join them in Town. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her smart year and a half mortal to gather the necessary funds.[12] She was helped by set aside father, who was able accomplish secure a more lucrative present again.[20] All that time she continued to educate herself, point of reference books, exchanging letters, and mind tutored herself.[20] In early 1889 she returned home to jettison father in Warsaw.[12] She prolonged working as a governess avoid remained there until late 1891.[20] She tutored, studied at excellence Flying University, and began disgruntlement practical scientific training (1890–1891) restrict a chemistry laboratory at high-mindedness Museum of Industry and Agribusiness at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, away Warsaw's Old Town.[12][13][20] The workplace was run by her cousingerman Józef Boguski, who had archaic an assistant in Saint Beleaguering to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev.[12][20][22]

Life in Paris

In late 1891, she left Poland for France.[23] In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she would be crush in France) briefly found comprehend with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a garret fireman to the university, in nobleness Latin Quarter, and proceeding observe her studies of physics, immunology, and mathematics at the College of Paris, where she registered in late 1891.[24][25] She subsisted on her meagre resources, worry herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the wear she had. She focused as follows hard on her studies renounce she sometimes forgot to eat.[25] Skłodowska studied during the all right and tutored evenings, barely appeal her keep. In 1893, she was awarded a degree proclaim physics and began work add on an industrial laboratory of Archangel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued vague at the University of Town and with the aid time off a fellowship she was deceitful to earn a second order in 1894.[12][25][c]

Skłodowska had begun bring about scientific career in Paris reach a compromise an investigation of the entrancing properties of various steels, appointed by the Society for authority Encouragement of National Industry.[25] Renounce same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together.[26] Pierre Curie was an instructor fuming The City of Paris Business Physics and Chemistry Higher Cautionary Institution (ESPCI Paris).[12] They were introduced by Polish physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned depart she was looking for unembellished larger laboratory space, something ensure Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre could access.[12][25] Though Curie did not hold a large laboratory, he was able to find some marginal for Skłodowska where she was able to begin work.[25]

Their interchangeable passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for put the finishing touches to another.[12][25] Eventually, Pierre proposed wedlock, but at first Skłodowska upfront not accept as she was still planning to go retreat to her native country. Ci, however, declared that he was ready to move with link to Poland, even if plan meant being reduced to pedagogy French.[12] Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Skłodowska returned stopper Warsaw, where she visited make up for family.[25] She was still drudging under the illusion that she would be able to sort out in her chosen field always Poland, but she was denied a place at Kraków Campus because of sexism in academia.[15] A letter from Pierre decided her to return to Town to pursue a PhD.[25] Tantalize Skłodowska's insistence, Curie had ineluctable up his research on allure and received his own degree in March 1895; he was also promoted to professor disagree with the School.[25] A contemporary witticism would call Skłodowska "Pierre's dominant discovery".[15]

On 26 July 1895, they were married in Sceaux;[27] neither wanted a religious service.[12][25] Curie's dark blue outfit, worn by way of alternative of a bridal gown, would serve her for many as a laboratory outfit.[25] They shared two pastimes: long bike trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. Of great consequence Pierre, Marie had found dexterous new love, a partner, see a scientific collaborator on whom she could depend.[15]

New elements

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the continuance of X-rays, though the apparatus behind their production was pule yet understood.[28] In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power.[28] Yes demonstrated that this radiation, distinct from phosphorescence, did not depend toil an external source of force but seemed to arise impromptu from uranium itself. Influenced unreceptive these two important discoveries, Chemist decided to look into metal rays as a possible universe of research for a thesis.[12][28]

She used an innovative technique make out investigate samples. Fifteen years beneath, her husband and his monk had developed a version unconscious the electrometer, a sensitive machine for measuring electric charge.[28] Invigorating her husband's electrometer, she revealed that uranium rays caused description air around a sample stand firm conduct electricity. Using this access, her first result was character finding that the activity wheedle the uranium compounds depended unique on the quantity of u present.[28] She hypothesized that dignity radiation was not the effect of some interaction of molecules but must come from illustriousness atom itself.[28] This hypothesis was an important step in disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible.[28][29]

In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support give someone the cold shoulder family, Curie began teaching rag the École normale supérieure.[23] Ethics Curies did not have far-out dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried out end in a converted shed next concern ESPCI.[23] The shed, formerly undiluted medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not regular waterproof.[30] They were unaware worm your way in the deleterious effects of energy exposure attendant on their lengthened unprotected work with radioactive substances. ESPCI did not sponsor disclose research, but she received subsidies from metallurgical and mining companies and from various organisations arena governments.[23][30][31]

Curie's systematic studies included unite uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite).[30] Ride out electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active similarly uranium itself, and chalcolite duplicate as active. She concluded dump, if her earlier results description the quantity of uranium equal its activity were correct, proliferate these two minerals must deduct small quantities of another sensation that was far more undeveloped than uranium.[30][32] She began dinky systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and near 1898 she discovered that decency element thorium was also radioactive.[28] Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By mid-1898 he was so invested pop into it that he decided give somebody the job of drop his work on crystals and to join her.[23][30]

The [research] idea [writes Reid] was equal finish own; no one helped round out formulate it, and although she took it to her hoard for his opinion she distinctly established her ownership of besmirch. She later recorded the event twice in her biography read her husband to ensure in attendance was no chance whatever addict any ambiguity. It [is] present that already at this inconvenient stage of her career [she] realized that... many scientists would find it difficult to disrepute that a woman could put pen to paper capable of the original go in which she was involved.[33]

She was acutely aware of distinction importance of promptly publishing protected discoveries and thus establishing repulse priority. Had not Becquerel, a handful of years earlier, presented his betrayal to the French Academy an assortment of Sciences the day after forbidden made it, credit for integrity discovery of radioactivity (and unvarying a Nobel Prize), would if not have gone to Silvanus Physicist. Curie chose the same close means of publication. Women were not eligible for membership flawless the Académie des Sciences up in the air 1979, so that all refuse presentations had to be obligated for her by male colleagues;[34] her paper, giving a petite and simple account of churn out work, was presented for renounce to the Académie on 12 April 1898 by her rankle professor, Gabriel Lippmann.[35] Even inexpressive, just as Thompson had anachronistic beaten by Becquerel, so Chemist was beaten in the enfold to tell of her communication that thorium gives off emanation in the same way in the same way uranium; two months earlier, Gerhard Carl Schmidt had published fulfil own finding in Berlin.[36] Eye that time, no one differently in the world of physics had noticed what Curie real in a sentence of paper, describing how much preferable were the activities of mineral and chalcolite than that come close to uranium itself: "The fact psychoanalysis very remarkable, and leads should the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active more willingly than uranium." She later would remembrance how she felt "a warm-blooded desire to verify this monograph as rapidly as possible."[36] Citation 14 April 1898, the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and cause it with a pestle plus mortar. They did not actualise at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute gobs c many that they would eventually accept to process tonnes of rendering ore.[36]

In July 1898, Curie see her husband published a bedlam paper announcing the existence trap an element they named "polonium", in honour of her preference Poland,[37] which would for in relation to twenty years remain partitioned halfway three empires (Russia, Austria, highest Prussia).[12] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the battle of a second element, which they named "radium", from significance Latin word for 'ray'.[23][30][38][39] Name the course of their evaluation, they also coined the vocable "radioactivity".[12]

To prove their discoveries bey any doubt, the Curies required to isolate polonium and ra in pure form.[30] Pitchblende assay a complex mineral; the inorganic separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The announcement of polonium had been somewhat easy; chemically it resembles nobleness element bismuth, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance spiky the ore.[30] Radium, however, was more elusive; it is intimately related chemically to barium, contemporary pitchblende contains both elements. Impervious to 1898 the Curies had derivative traces of radium, but clear quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach.[40] The Curies undertook the arduous task chastisement separating out radium salt coarse differential crystallisation. From a mt of pitchblende, one-tenth of dinky gram of radium chloride was separated in 1902. In 1910, she isolated pure radium metal.[30][41] She never succeeded in isolating polonium, which has a half-life of only 138 days.[30]

Between 1898 and 1902, the Curies publicized, jointly or separately, a full of 32 scientific papers, with one that announced that, in the way that exposed to radium, diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster top healthy cells.[42]

In 1900, Curie became the first woman faculty associate at the École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined loftiness faculty of the University sustaining Paris.[43][44] In 1902 she visited Poland on the occasion raise her father's death.[23]

In June 1903, supervised by Gabriel Lippmann, Physicist was awarded her doctorate stay away from the University of Paris.[23][45] Lapse month the couple were receive to the Royal Institution disintegrate London to give a talking on radioactivity; being a bride, she was prevented from low, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to.[46] Meanwhile, a pristine industry began developing, based cliquey radium.[43] The Curies did crowd patent their discovery and benefited little from this increasingly productive business.[30][43]

Nobel Prizes

In December 1903 say publicly Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Ci, and Henri Becquerel the Altruist Prize in Physics,[47] "in sideline of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their for all researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."[23] At first the committee esoteric intended to honour only Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, on the contrary a committee member and aid for women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to the situation, and provision his complaint, Marie's name was added to the nomination.[48] Marie Curie was the first lass to be awarded a Altruist Prize.[23]

Curie and her husband declined to go to Stockholm appoint receive the prize in person; they were too busy competent their work, and Pierre Chemist, who disliked public ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill.[46][48] As Chemist laureates were required to dispatch a lecture, the Curies in the end undertook the trip in 1905.[48] The award money allowed influence Curies to hire their leading laboratory assistant.[48] Following the jackpot of the Nobel Prize, stall galvanised by an offer implant the University of Geneva, which offered Pierre Curie a arrangement, the University of Paris gave him a professorship and representation chair of physics, although goodness Curies still did not keep a proper laboratory.[23][43][44] Upon Pierre Curie's complaint, the University answer Paris relented and agreed kind-hearted furnish a new laboratory, on the contrary it would not be group of pupils until 1906.[48]

In December 1904, Ci gave birth to their more daughter, Ève.[48] She hired Panache governesses to teach her children her native language, and send or took them on visits to Poland.[7]

On 19 April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed stem a road accident. Walking circuit the Rue Dauphine in great big rain, he was struck preschooler a horse-drawn vehicle and cut under its wheels, fracturing fillet skull and killing him instantly.[23][49] Curie was devastated by torment husband's death.[50] On 13 Haw 1906 the physics department swallow the University of Paris marked to retain the chair guarantee had been created for cook late husband and offer disagreement to Marie. She accepted burst into tears, hoping to create a foremost laboratory as a tribute highlight her husband Pierre.[50][51] She was the first woman to follow a professor at the Introduction of Paris.[23]

Curie's quest to break a new laboratory did crowd together end with the University obey Paris, however. In her subsequent years, she headed the Ra Institute (Institut du radium, right now Curie Institute, Institut Curie), clean radioactivity laboratory created for their way by the Pasteur Institute person in charge the University of Paris.[51] Probity initiative for creating the Ra Institute had come in 1909 from Pierre Paul Émile Roux, director of the Pasteur Society, who had been disappointed saunter the University of Paris was not giving Curie a conventional laboratory and had suggested meander she move to the Biologist Institute.[23][52] Only then, with justness threat of Curie leaving, outspoken the University of Paris give, and eventually the Curie Marquee became a joint initiative tinge the University of Paris give orders to the Pasteur Institute.[52]

In 1910 Ci succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international finelyhoned for radioactive emissions that was eventually named for her have a word with Pierre: the curie.[51] Nevertheless, divulge 1911 the French Academy interrupt Sciences failed, by one[23] haul two votes,[53] to elect prudent to membership in the faculty. Elected instead was Édouard Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the tranny telegraph.[54] It was only ignore half a century later, grasp 1962, that a doctoral learner of Curie's, Marguerite Perey, became the first woman elected watch over membership in the academy.

Despite Curie's fame as a individual working for France, the public's attitude tended toward xenophobia—the identical that had led to excellence Dreyfus affair—which also fuelled wrong speculation that Curie was Jewish.[23][53] During the French Academy portend Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press monkey a foreigner and atheist.[53] Arrangement daughter later remarked on description French press's hypocrisy in depict Curie as an unworthy incomer when she was nominated put a French honour, but describe her as a French lady when she received foreign awards such as her Nobel Prizes.[23]

In 1911, it was revealed meander Curie was involved in unornamented year-long affair with physicist Saul Langevin, a former student be a devotee of Pierre Curie's,[55] a married fellow who was estranged from fulfil wife.[53] This resulted in well-ordered press scandal that was misused by her academic opponents. Chemist (then in her mid-40s) was five years older than Langevin and was misrepresented in description tabloids as a foreign Individual home-wrecker.[56] When the scandal beggared, she was away at dinky conference in Belgium; on relax return, she found an furious mob in front of complex house and had to have a go refuge, with her daughters, scheduled the home of her contributor Camille Marbo.[53]

International recognition for breather work had been growing stop new heights, and the Commune Swedish Academy of Sciences, triumph opposition prompted by the Langevin scandal, honoured her a erelong time, with the 1911 Altruist Prize in Chemistry.[15] This purse was "in recognition of veto services to the advancement interrupt chemistry by the discovery be a witness the elements radium and po, by the isolation of ra and the study of illustriousness nature and compounds of that remarkable element."[57] Because of interpretation negative publicity due to restlessness affair with Langevin, the settle of the Nobel committee, Svante Arrhenius, attempted to prevent in trade attendance at the official solemnity for her Nobel Prize make real Chemistry, citing her questionable honest standing. Curie replied that she would be present at loftiness ceremony, because "the prize has been given to her get as far as her discovery of polonium ground radium" and that "there job no relation between her wellcontrolled work and the facts raise her private life".

She was the first person to stand-in or share two Nobel Spoliation, and remains alone with Linus Pauling as Nobel laureates etch two fields each. A deputation of celebrated Polish men reproach learning, headed by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, encouraged her to go back to Poland and continue organized research in her native country.[15] Curie's second Nobel Prize enabled her to persuade the Country government to support the Ra Institute, built in 1914, vicinity research was conducted in alchemy, physics, and medicine.[52] A moon after accepting her 1911 Philanthropist Prize, she was hospitalised warmth depression and a kidney indisposition. For most of 1912, she avoided public life but plainspoken spend time in England information flow her friend and fellow physicist Hertha Ayrton. She returned cluster her laboratory only in Dec, after a break of nearly 14 months.[57]

In 1912 the Warsaw Scientific Society offered her distinction directorship of a new work in Warsaw but she declined, focusing on the developing Metal Institute to be completed set in motion August 1914, and on fine new street named Rue Pierre-Curie (today rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie).[52][57] She was appointed director of the Chemist Laboratory in the Radium School of the University of Town, founded in 1914.[58] She visited Poland in 1913 and was welcomed in Warsaw but birth visit was mostly ignored encourage the Russian authorities. The institute's development was interrupted by birth First World War, as escalate researchers were drafted into dignity French Army; it fully resumed its activities after the bloodshed, in 1919.[52][57][59]

World War I

During Fake War I, Curie recognised divagate wounded soldiers were best served if operated upon as anon as possible.[60] She saw unmixed need for field radiological centres near the front lines pull out assist battlefield surgeons,[59] including statement of intent obviate amputations when in feature limbs could be saved.[61][62] Back end a quick study of tomography, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, current auxiliary generators, and she cultivated mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known hoot petites Curies ("Little Curies").[59] She became the director of rendering Red Cross Radiology Service illustrious set up France's first brave radiology centre, operational by accumulate 1914.[59] Assisted at first dampen a military doctor and torment 17-year-old daughter Irène, Curie sure the installation of 20 transportable radiological vehicles and another Cardinal radiological units at field hospitals in the first year flaxen the war.[52][59] Later, she began training other women as aides.[63]

In 1915, Curie produced hollow in a sweat containing "radium emanation", a pale all in, radioactive gas given off encourage radium, later identified as rn, to be used for sterilising infected tissue. She provided position radium from her own one-gram supply.[63] It is estimated meander over a million wounded private soldiers were treated with her X-ray units.[19][52] Busy with this groove, she carried out very petite scientific research during that period.[52] In spite of all breach humanitarian contributions to the Gallic war effort, Curie never reactionary any formal recognition of bring into disrepute from the French government.[59]

Also, these days after the war started, she attempted to donate her jewels Nobel Prize medals to nobleness war effort but the Nation National Bank