Dr. Marie Curie is known to the world as the inventor of radioactive metals i.e. Radium & Polonium. Originally of Polish descent, she settled down in France. She was of that rare breed of people who shied away from the limelight. Apparently, life had different plans for her often with the spotlight remaining focused on her because of her pioneering work in the field of Radioactivity. She was a person of unique attributes, and one such lady who broke the gender barrier prevalent at that age and who went on to be awarded the coveted Nobel Prize twice.
She was not merely associated with re-defining scientific values; she was equally at home pioneering for social causes. Her faith in science, her tenacity and her strong work ethics, allowed her to pursue and realize her dreams. The pioneering spirit of Curie led the way for the discovery of twenty-nine new radioactive isotopes in the period 1903-12. Her work has affected the lives of people everywhere through application of radioactive principles in medicine, communications and in industrial technology. A Sorbonne University scholar, she proved her mettle working extensively during World War I. Madame Curie was perhaps an ideal ‘working parent’ who lived her life with the guiding thought: "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
MARIE ALIAS ‘MANYA’
A noted chemist and physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie was the youngest child of her family. Manya was the affectionate name of Marya Sklodowska. She had four elder sisters Sophie, Bronya, Hela and Maria, and one brother named Joseph. Marie was a girl with rough hair and red skin, born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Her father, Wladyslaw Sklodowska was the president of Dublin University and ran several schools, and her mother was a lecturer at the Warsaw University.
Marie's mother, Bronislawa, had an enormous influence on all her children's lives, but especially on Manya. Bronislawa was a working parent: the headmistress of one Warsaw's better girls' schools. For a few years, the family lived in an apartment in the rear of the school, in a stately town house on Freta Street. Marie was born in this apartment. Madam Sklodowska often found herself overloaded with all the work of running a big household and school. Sometimes she used to wish she were a single woman. Nevertheless, she found time to make all the children's shoes by hand. Bronislawa was a republican in her own way, and little Marie learned never to look down on manual labor. At the age of nine, she faced the death of her eldest sister Sophie; this was the first tragic event of her life.
In 1871, Marie's uncle came to live with them. None of the family were aware that he had a terminal case of tuberculosis, which is a highly infectious pathogen or germ which iscarried through the air. In those days, tuberculosis was a very dreaded disease; it affected almost every household, infecting both rich and poor families alike.
It is very likely that Marie's mother became infected with tuberculosis from her brother-in-law or perhaps from one of her own students.
After just two years of her sister's death, her mother succumbed to tuberculosis. Marie was only 11 when she had to face this second tragedy.
THIRST FOR EDUCATION
Her parents had always ben firm believers of the importance of education. In fact, she was born in a family of teachers, a family that considered education above anything else. Marie had her first lessons in physics and chemistry from her father. For her formal education, she was first admitted to a private grammar school.
At the grammar school that Marie attended, they had a "double curriculum." The teachers would pretend to study Russiam-approved subjects whenever the inspector would visit (Russians had the control over the all the public schools). This was stressful for Marie because she was usually called on to recite some passage in Russian for the inspector since she was a top student. When she was around 10 years old, her father transferred her to the Russian-controlled public schools. The students there spoke only Russian in class, and every subject was taught in the politically correct way. Despite this, Marie enjoyed school, and her father had very high expectations for all his children. Bronia, Jozef, and Helena, Maries older sisters and brother, had all graduated first in their class. Marie was expected to do the same. Both Bronia and Marie wished to study abroad, perhaps in Paris where there were many Polish ex-patriots. They knew their father could not afford it. In fact, the family had to take student boarders and to run a school there in the apartment when Marie's father lost his job in the public schools. However, the girls were persistent; they never gave up on their dream, they would find an ingenious solution to the financial obstacle.
When Marie Sklodowska graduated from public school at the age of 15, she was awarded a gold medal as the Valedictorian of her class. She had a brilliant aptitude for study and a great thirst for knowledge. Nevertheless, the five years of intense study had taken their toll. She must have been under enormous pressure todo as well as her older siblings, Bronia and Jozef. Marie was exhausted, and so her father decided that Marie and her older sister Helena would spend a year with her wealthy uncle and his wife at their country estate. There Marie relaxed with horse-back riding, fishing, swinging "hard and high," and rowing on a lake. In the winter, they went on several kuligs or sleigh rides through the Polish countryside and danced sometimes all night at many parties. Famous polish artists and intellectuals would often drop by at the manor house for a visit. The experience gave Marie a view of life at the top, and it was a needed escape from all the pressure of exams, grades, and school.
Marie dreamed of being able to study at the Sorbonne University in Paris. But the dream was beyond the means of her family. To solve the problem, Marie and her elder sister Bronya made a plan that first Marie should go to work as a governess and help Bronya to study medicine at the Sorbonne, and when Bronya took her degree, she would contribute to the cost of Marie’s studies. As a result, Marie could not start further studies until she was 24. Marie’s experience as a governess was very unsatisfactory. She found an opening with a rich Warsaw family and hoped that children would be pleasant and their parents would be helpful and understanding. Marie was a healthy, honest, tender hearted and gay girl. According to her teachers, she was a ‘notably gifted’ student. It is almost tragic that a girl of such gifted qualities had to suffer with the extremely dense and quarrelsome people of the Warsaw family.
The years Marie spent working as a governess were frustrating. Sometimes she felt quite worthless as if her life was going nowhere. The situation became more difficult when Marie fell in love with the son of one her employers, Kazimierz Zorawski. They talked seriously of marriage, but ultimately his parents rejected her because of her family's impoverished financial situation. Marie had to stay on another year in this position. It was awkward to say the least. The hope of marriage to Kazimierz lingered on and then collapsed when Marie later decided to go back to Warsaw.
Eventually, she decided to resign from her post as governess. At the time, she was only eighteen and did not know what the future held in store for her. When Bronya married a doctor of Polish origin, she invited her to come and live with them. Marie agreed and immediately left for Paris.
TOWARDS HER ‘LITTLE WORLD'
Though she was wearied from the tiresome journey from Warsaw; as soon as she alighted from the train at the Paris station, she felt at considerable ease. For the first time, she was breathing the air of a free country, and in her enthusiasm, everything seemed utterly wonderful. The passer-bys could actually speak the language they wished to; the booksellers could sell any works they chose. But above all, it was wonderful that the streets of Paris were leading her to the heart of the city and opening the doors of "the little world", The University of Sorbonne. Little ‘Manya’ was now Marie Sklodowska, a student in the faculty of Science. She was much more interested in the learned professors than in the young men.
By then, she had been away from her studies for six years, nor had she any training in understanding rapidly spoken French. But her keen interest in studying and her joy being at the Sorbonne with all its opportunities, helped her surmount all the difficulties. To save herself from a two-hour journey, she rented a little attic in the Quartier Latin. The atmosphere was so cold at night that she had to pile on everything she had in the way of clothing, so as to be able to sleep. But as compensation for all her privations, she had total freedom to be able to devote herself totally to studies. She wrote later, "It was like a new world had opened for me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty."
AMONGST MASTERMINDS
At Paris, she was able to hear the leading mathematicians and physicists of France: Marcel Brillouin, Paul Painleve, Gabriel Lippmann and Paul Appell. On her first day, November 3, 1891, Paul Appell was giving a lecture in mathematics. Marie was one of the first to arrive.
In a quite natural voice, he said: ‘I take the sun and I throw it…’
The Polish girl Marie smiled with delight and her eyes were filled with happiness. She thought that surely science was more interesting than any story, and full of imagination and magic than any fairy tale.
After hearing such words, she increasingly felt that it was worthwhile to have struggled and suffered for six long years. After two years, in 1893, she took her degree in physics and the next year, she got the second one in mathematics. Now, her goal was to take a teacher’s diploma and then to return her motherland.
AN INTELLECTUAL AFFECTION
In 1894, there occurred an event that was to be of decisive importance in her life. Marie had been asked by the "Society for the Encouragement of National Industry", to make a study of the magnetic powers of various steels, and she was looking for a suitable place for her experiments. This was known to a Polish friend of hers and one day, he said to her: "I have an idea. I know a scientist, a very gifted man, who works in the school of Physics and Chemistry. Perhaps he might have a room for you. Come to see my wife tomorrow evening after dinner. I will ask the young man to meet you. You probably know his name: it is Pierre Curie."
Thus, at the beginning of the year 1894, Marie and Pierre met for the first time. Marie was twenty-six, and Pierre was thirty-five years old. His clear eyes and his careless grace struck Marie. They had a conversation on scientific subjects and became quite friendly. Pierre was an internationally known physicist, but an outsider in the French scientific community. He was a serious idealist and dreamer whose greatest wish was to be able to devote his life to scientific work. He passed his baccalaureate at the early age of 16.
Marie was an idealist. Pierre and Marie immediately discovered an intellectual affinity and in July 1895, they got married in the town hall at Sceax. They bought a bicycle with the money they recieved as wedding presents. Soon, long and sometime adventurous cycle rides became their way of relaxing. Apart from these rides, their life was quiet, monotonous, and filled with hard work and study.
HISTORICAL DISCOVERY
The next year in 1896, Marie passed her teachers diploma. She became a mother in September 1897. Her husband had managed to arrange that Marie should be allowed to work in the laboratory of the school of Physics. Marie conducted a number of experiments on the magnetic properties of steel on behalf of an Industrial Association. She decided to continue the research and made a systematic investigation of mysterious ‘uranium rays.’ Just after a few days, Marie discovered that thorium gives off the same rays as uranium. The results were surprising. Pierre gave up his research into ‘Crystals and Symmetry’ in nature and involved himself in Marie’s project.
The Curies discovered that they needed to use the products of radioactivity. Then they isolated an unknown element of uranium. They named the metal ‘polonium’ after Marie’s beloved Poland. By the end of the year, they announced the discovery of a second radioactive element, which they named ‘radium’, because of its capacity to reflect light.
THE ‘NOBLE’ CURIES
In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. The citation was, ‘in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.’ In a letter to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Pierre explained that neither of them was able to come to Stockholm to receive the prize. They could not get away because of their teaching obligations. In June 1905, they went to Stockholm, where Pierre gave a Nobel lecture. Although the Nobel Prize alleviated their financial crises, the Curies now suddenly found themselves in the focus of the interest of the public and the press. To escape from the crowd, they spent their holidays where they were unlikely to be discovered. Their appearance helped them to escape notice. The tall, carelessly dressed man, and the young woman looking like a country girl – surely they could not be the famous Nobel Prize winners!
On one occasion, an American reporter followed their track to a little village. He stopped, puzzled, in front of a fisherman’s cottage. Where could Marie Curie be? Perhaps he could find out from a woman who was sitting on the steps at the door. She was shaking sand out of her bathing–shoes. The reporter knew that this was the face that he had stared back in hundreds of photographs published in newspapers. He sat down beside her and took out his notebook. Marie, finding escape impossible, answered several questions as shortly as possible. The American news–man thought that he might ask her a few personal questions about her youth, her way of working, and her feelings. But at that moment, Marie put an end to the conservation with the words, "In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons." Such was her dedication and shyness.
A MISERABLE DAY
It was April 19, 1906. The sky was dark and it was raining fast. On that Thursday, Pierre made weak by radiation and exhausted by work, was run over by a horse–drawn wagon near the Pont Neuf in Paris and was killed. When Marie heard the news, she remained still, she neither moaned nor wept. After a long despairing silence, her lips moved at last and she asked in a low voice, hoping against hope: "Pierre is dead? Actually dead ?"
From that day, Marie Curie became not only a widow, but also a pitiful and hopelessly lonely woman. She felt that everything was over. But the opinion of her supporters was that Marie was the only physicist who could replace Pierre at the Sorbonne. For the first time, a position in French higher education was given to a woman.
When she came to know about it, she said, "I will try". There came to her memory, the words of Pierre: ‘Whatever happens, even if one has to go on like a body without a soul, one must work just the same.’
And she made up her mind, started working in the laboratory. In her diary, she said to Pierre: ‘I would like to continue your work.'
THE TROUBLED TIMES
In the beginning of November 1977, the press in the France started a campaign against Marie Curie. They took up a personal issue regarding her relation with her colleague Paul Langeuin. He had had marital problems for several years and had moved from his suburban home to a small apartment in Paris. Marie was depicted as the reason. Both were described in slanderous terms. The scandal developed dramatically. Marie defended herself and got an apology from the newspaper "Le Temps".
‘NOBEL’ PRIZE AWARDED TWICE – A RARE FEAT
Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel twice in her life. It was the first time a person had been awarded the Nobel Prize twice: one in 1903 and the other in 1911. Those historical moments propelled Madame Curie to dizzy heights of fame. Madame Curie and her husband were the ‘parents’ of radium and polonium.
She served in the battle zones of World War I. And in this way, she prevented innumerable amputations, by enabling surgeons to find the precise location of bullets and shattered bones, by using mobile X-ray services. She was the founder of a course to instruct technicians in Radiology. Her paper, "Radiology and War" showed how scientific research could save human life from suffering. She also unashamedly asked for support from the wealthiest families in the community. Madame Curie believed in love and peace. She also supported world peace by serving on the council of the League of Nations and on its International Committee on intellectual cooperation.
WAR AND PEACE
In 1914, when Marie was in the process of beginning to lead one of the departments in the Radium Institute established jointly by the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute, the First World War broke out. Marie sent her two daughters; Irene aged 17, and Eve, aged 10, to safety in Brittany. She at once began to study the conditions of the army medical services and to plan about improvements in the treatment of the wounded. The hospitals in and near Paris were provided with X-ray apparatuses. Cars were fitted up with the necessary X-ray and electrical apparatus, and sent out to deal with the wounded that were being brought to the hospitals. For the splendid work she had done, Madame Curie was offered honors, which she refused. When the battle was over and the world became calm, in 1919, she took her place as the head of the laboratory of the Radium Institute.
LAST WARM YEARS
During the last years, she regularly refused all those wanted to interview her. However, a prominent American female journalist, Marie Maloney, known as ‘Missy’ managed to meet her. The meeting proved to be of great importance to both of them. Marie told Missy that researchers in the USA had some 50 grams of radium at their disposal. Where as she herself had only one gram, of the same. This made Missy determined and she launched a campaign for the same in America.
The greatest day in America for Marie was May 20, 1921. On that day, at the White House in Washington, the Head of the State, President Harding, presented to Madame Curie her gram of radium collected from the American people by Missy. He put into her hands the deed of gift and hung a small golden key round her neck – the key of the radium case. Last of all, the President addressed himself to the, ‘noble creature, the devoted wife and loving mother’- - -
On June 28, the little family of Madame Curie went on board the ‘Olympic’ for the return Journey. During the next few years, she journeyed to many different countries. She did valuable work for the ‘League of Nations’.
The ashes of Marie and Pierre Curie have now been laid to rest under the famous dome of the Pantheon, in Paris, along with the world-renowned writer Victor Hugo, the shrewd politician Jean Jaures and the Resistance fighter Jean Moulin.
SACRIFICE FOR SCIENCE
In the last ten years, Marie had the joy of seeing her daughter Irene and her son-in-law Frederic Joliot do successful research in the laboratory. She could see their discovery of artificial radioactivity, but before they would be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935, she left the world, on July 4, 1934.
The director of the sanatorium, where she was admitted, said in his report on her death that it was caused by the long and continued exposure to radium.
SCIENCE DECLARED:
"Madame Curie can be counted among the victims of the radioactive bodies which she and her husband discovered."
The news of her death soon spread over the world and caused great sorrow. Young scientists said grievingly. ‘We have lost everything.’
Madame Curie was laid to rest in the same grave as her husband, on Friday, July 24.
A year later, her last message to the young lovers of physics was published as a book posthumously. The title was made of one radiant word: Radioactivity.
THE DISCOVERY OF RADIUM & POLONIUM
The scientific history of radium and polonium is awe-inspiring. In the year 1897, Madame Curie and her husband Professor Curie were working in the laboratory of Physics and Chemistry. While, Professor Curie held his lectures, Marie was engaged in some work on Uranium rays, which had been discovered two years ago by Professor Becquerel. She started working on the way of making good measurements of the uranium rays. She was also trying to know if there are any other elements, giving out the same kind of rays. She worked on all known elements, and their compounds. During her study, she found that uranium compounds were active and also all thorium compounds, but neither were the other elements active nor were their compounds. As for the uranium and thorium compounds, she found that they were active in proportion to their uranium or thorium content. Then she took up the measurements of minerals and found that several of them contained uranium or thorium, or both were active. Finally, she came to a conclusion that there should be some unknown element in the minerals having a much greater radioactivity than uranium or thorium. She was anxious to find out and isolate that element. She settled to work with her husband. It was not an easy task. They thought it would be done in several weeks or months, but it actually took them many years of hard work. As a result, the most important element, radium, could be separated in a pure state.
THE PROPERTIES OF RADIUM
The properties of the rays of radium have been studied extensively. The particles, expelled from radium have a velocity equivalent to that of light. The atoms of radium are destroyed by expulsion of these particles, some of that are atoms of helium. Radium is not the only dement having these properties. Many other radioactive elements are already known like polonium, mesothorium, radiothorium, and actinium. There are also certain radioactive gases, named emanations.
IMPORTANCE OF RADIUM
The intensity of the rays of Radium is several million times greater than the uranium rays. This effect is what makes radium so important. From the practical point of view, the most important property of the rays is the production of physiological effects on the cells of the human organism. These effects may be used for the cure of several diseases. Effective results have been obtained in many cases, in the treatment of cancer. It’s medical utilization made it necessary to get that element in sufficient quantities. To fulfill the demand, the first factory of radium was started in France, and later in America where a big quantity of ore named carnotite is available. Although the production of radium is in many grams per year, the price is still high because the quantity of radium contained in the ore is very small. Radium is a hundred thousand times more expensive than gold.
When radium was discovered, no one knew that it would be prove to be useful in hospitals. The work that the Curie couple did was one of ‘Pure Sciences’. This is the proof that scientific work must never be considered from the point of view of its direct usefulness.
PIONEERS OF RADIOACTIVE AGE
New discoveries at the end of the nineteenth century became of importance also for the blossoming of modern art. X-Ray photography focused art on the invisible. For the physicists of Madame Curie’s age, the new discoveries were no less revolutionary. During a radioactive decay, heat is given off from an invisible and apparently inexhaustible source and the radioactive element is subsequently transformed into new elements. Just as in the ancient dreams of an alchemist, the possibility of making gold, all these things contravened the most entrenched principles of classical physics. For radioactivity to be understood, the development of quantum mechanics was required. But it should be noted that the birth of quantum mechanics was not initiated by the study of radioactivity, but by Max Planck’s study of radiation from a black body in 1900. It was an old field that was not the object of the same interest and publicity as this new spectacular discovery. It was not until 1928, that the type of radioactivity that is called alpha decay obtained its theoretical explanation.
Much has changed in the conditions under which researchers worked, since Marie and Pierre Curie worked in a draughty shed. Their refusal to patent the discovery was more so in terms of their moral ethics as researchers. These might definitely have been looked down upon in those times
STUBBORN SCIENTIST
Madame Curie paved the way for the development of nuclear physics and cancer therapy. Born in Poland, a conservative country of that time, she established herself as a woman of science and courage, compassionate yet stubbornly determined. Her discovery of ‘radium’ became the reason for her death. She harbored within her the dream of a scientific career, a concept inconceivable for a woman of that time. But she never gave up, and fulfilled her scientific dream. When she died, she was almost blinded; her fingers were burnt and stigmatized by her ‘dear’ radium. She was a gifted scientist. Her work at Sorbonne opened the new way to nuclear science. She often used the words ‘We must act’. It was the motive of her life. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Suffragette Movement towards the equal rights of woman was developed in Europe. While she was not actively involved in it, her achievements and awards were a great encouragement to the movement.
‘NOBEL’ PRIZE AWARDED TWICE – A RARE FEAT
Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel twice in her life. It was the first time a person had been awarded the Nobel Prize twice: one in 1903 and the other in 1911. Those historical moments propelled Madame Curie to dizzy heights of fame. Madame Curie and her husband were the ‘parents’ of radium and polonium.
She served in the battle zones of World War I. And in this way, she prevented innumerable amputations, by enabling surgeons to find the precise location of bullets and shattered bones, by using mobile X-ray services. She was the founder of a course to instruct technicians in Radiology. Her paper, "Radiology and War" showed how scientific research could save human life from suffering. She also unashamedly asked for support from the wealthiest families in the community. Madame Curie believed in love and peace. She also supported world peace by serving on the council of the League of Nations and on its International Committee on intellectual cooperation.
DOOR OF NUCLEAR AGE
Aligned with Einstein, Madame Curie carries the glory as well as the blame attached to ushering in the world the nuclear age. It is true that no one had the answer to the toxic legacy of the radioactive waste that caused the total destruction of Hiroshima in 1945. Yet, the work of these scientific pioneers has given the world a greater understanding and respect for the atomic process and its dangers. Einstein’s message to Roosevelt in 1939, concerning the possibility of a nuclear bomb, was always intended as deterrent to war. The misuse of the technology by unsafe testing was never part of Einstein’s or Madame Curie’s equations. Immense knowledge is a double- edged sword, but ignoring the process for fear of change, harbors its own intrinsic dangers. ‘New York Times’, in 1921 with a front-page headline promising, ‘MADAME CURIE PLANS TO END ALL CANCERS’, celebrated her precious invention.
BALANCE OF MIND
Documentaries and dramatization of her life have had a common theme, praise for the selfless pursuit of alleviating human suffering, which was Madame Curie’s lifetime work. Her fame stretched to the commissioning of commemorative, 50 years anniversary postage stamps, celebrating the discovery of radium. She possessed the determination as well as the vision necessary to succeed in her research. Madame Curie always believed in love, and love was out of her life after the death of her husband. She also fought the prejudices of that day, hatred of foreigners and sexism. But Madame Curie, in her youth, was attracted towards an intellectual physicist Pierre and decided to marry him. The idea of choosing between a family life and that of a scientist did not even cross her mind. She resolved to face love, motherhood and science. Through her unconquerable will and her enthusiasm, she succeeded in balancing her domestic life as well as her career as a scientist. Madame Curie was, what we today would call a "working parent". Her exceptional dedication, courage and endurance would prove to be an inspiration for today’s generation.
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