She refused to cash in on her discoveriesĪfter discovering Radium in 1898, Curie and Pierre balked at the opportunity to pursue a patent for it and to profit from its production, despite the fact that they had barely enough money to procure the uranium slag they needed in order to extract the element. Later that year, thanks to a combination of her accomplishments and the combined efforts of her husband and Mittage-Leffler, Curie became the first woman in history to receive the Nobel Prize. with respect to our research on radioactive bodies.”Įventually, the wording of the official nomination was amended. Pierre, in turn, wrote the committee insisting that he and Curie be “considered together. Thankfully, a sympathetic member of the nominating committee, a professor of mathematics at Stockholm University College named Gösta Mittage-Leffler, wrote a letter to Pierre warning him of the glaring omission. Yet, in a sign of the times and its prevailing sexist attitudes, no recognition of Curie's contributions was offered, nor was there even any mention of her name. In 1903, members of the French Academy of Sciences wrote a letter to the Swedish Academy in which they nominated the collective discoveries in the field of radioactivity made by Marie and Pierre Curie, as well as their contemporary Henri Becquerel, for the Nobel Prize in Physics. She was originally ignored by the Nobel Prize nominating committee By the time she and Pierre eventually submitted their discoveries for professional consideration, Curie had personally gone through multiple tons of uranium-rich slag in this manner. Nonetheless, Curie would fondly recall their time together in the leaky, drafty shack despite the fact that, in order to extract and isolate the radioactive elements, she often spent entire days stirring boiling cauldrons of uranium-rich pitchblende until “broken with fatigue”. It may come as a surprise to know that Curie and Pierre conducted the bulk of the research and experimentation which led to the discovery of the elements Radium and Polonium in what was described by the respected German chemist, Wilhelm Ostwald, as “a cross between a stable and a potato shed.” In fact, when he was first shown the premises, he assumed that it was “a practical joke.” Even after the couple had won the Nobel Prize for their discoveries, Pierre died never having set foot in the new laboratory that the University of Paris had promised to build them. While Curie’s major accomplishments may be well known, here are several surprising facts about her personal and professional life that may not be. Not only was she the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, but also the first person (man or woman) ever to win the award twice and for achievements in two distinct scientific fields. from a French university, as well as the first woman to be employed as a professor at the University of Paris. Today, she is recognized throughout the world not only for her groundbreaking Nobel Prize-winning discoveries but also for having boldly broken many gender barriers during her lifetime.Ĭurie became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. With her husband, Pierre, the Polish-born Frenchwoman pioneered the study of radioactivity until her death in 1934. This seventh of November commemorates the birth of legendary scientist Marie Curie (born Maria Salomea Skłodowska) 152 years ago.
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