Marie Curie

Childhood and Education

Marie Curie was born in 1867 in Warsaw to two Polish schoolteachers. She was the youngest of five. She loved traveling with her family to the country to visit their relatives often during her childhood. Having schoolteachers as parents, Curie got an early start to education at age six. She learned physics and math easily and received much help from her father in the sciences, which he loved. Her oldest sister's death when Curie was nine began the hardships in her childhood Her mother, stricken with guilt over her sister's death, died two years later. Her mother had always been the one keeping the family together, and her father took her death very hard. He focused on work and his children's studies, so school became an important part of her life. Curie finished school at fifteen and took time of to become a governess. She moved back in with her father and began working in a laboratory. She also studied science, literature, and sociology on her own. With the help of her father, she moved to Paris to live with her sister. She moved from her sister's house to the heart of Paris to go to school and be less distracted by social scenes in her sister's part of town.

Scientific Achievements

She graduated from La Sorbonne and began working where she met Pierre Curie in 1894. She was unsure of whether she should work with him or not because she did not want to leave her family behind. She moved back to Poland but ended up returning to Paris. She did decide to work with him, and they got married in 1895. She began working as a scientist and made many discoveries and achievements:

• Doctor of Science in 1903
• Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 with her husband and Henri Becquerel for their work on radiation
• Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 with Pierre
• Matteucci Medal in 1904
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for the discovery and isolation of radium and discovery of pollinium
• Founded the Radium Institute in Paris in 1914
• Taught at La Sorbonne as first female teacher
• First woman to win Nobel Prize
• Only woman to win 2 Nobel Prizes
• Work on the chemical element, Actinium

These were important discoveries to society. The discovery of radium was especially useful in World War I. It has was therapeutic and so could be used to alleviate suffering. Teaching at La Sorbonne was beneficial for the students of the school.

Nobel Prize

Notebook Page of Pierre and Marie 1898

Personality Traits

She was a very important woman in science. She was both typical and atypical of a stereotypical scientist. She was, like other scientists,:

• Persistent
• Focused
• Curious
• Exploratory
• Optimistic

Unlike a stereotypical scientist, she was:

• Social
• Not always dry and technical
• Not all about science all day, everyday

Marie and Pierre Working

Curie's atypical personality traits did not hinder her progress in any way. She was a social person. She had a study group of friends in Poland, and she loved to visit her relatives and just to be around people. When she was alone in Paris, she missed her friends and family. Being dry and technical was not as much a part of her life. She loved nature, poetry, and literature. Also, science was not always the only thing in her life. She loved taking vacations with her husband and alone. She used these vacations as a break for her mind.