It is common in these days that dentists would take x-rays photo of your teeth to examine the status of bones and tissues. This is one type of Radioactivity and a medical application in our daily lives. Many people contributed in this field of science and technology. One of them is Madame Curie. She is best known as the discoverer of the radioactive elements polonium and radium and studied the x-rays they emitted. For scientists and the public, her radium was a key to a basic change in our understanding of matter and energy. Her work not only influenced the development of fundamental science but also ushered in a new era in medical research and treatment.
She was born Manya Salomea Skłodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. Marie is her French name later. Her parents were teachers and raised five children with Marie as the youngest child. During Russian occupation of Poland and the suppression of Polish independence movement, the family had lost property and fortunes. Her father taught mathematics and physics. After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the lab equipment home, and instructed his children in its use. He was eventually fired by the Russian supervisors. The family had no choice but to supplement the income by lodging boys in their house.
Marie was only eight when her oldest sister caught typhus from a boarder and died. That death was followed less than three years later by the death her mother, who lost a five-year battle with tuberculosis at the age of 42.
Marie was the star pupil in her class. Her personal losses did not impede her academic success. After graduating from (junior) high school at 15, Marie suffered a collapse that doctors thought was due to fatigue or “nervous” problems — today it might be diagnosed as depression. At her father’s urging Marie spent a year with relatives in the country. A merry round of dances and other festivities, it would be the only carefree year of her life.
Marie received her education of sciences and languages from her father. Her father lamented and complained that he made a poor investment and lost the family fortune. The family was poor financially and the children had to be on their own in order to pursue higher education. Marie became a tutor long before her 17th birthday. She also joined sessions of the “Floating University” (class rooms changed from time to time to shun authority) with the patriotic Polish youth to continue her education.
One day Marie made a proposal to her elder sister, Bronya, that they form an alliance. Marie would support Bronya to attend medical university in Paris. Bronya would then later support Marie after she became a doctor. In September, 1885, Marie went to apply for a job as governess (live-in tutor) in a family. However, she was severely disappointed as in her letter to her cousin:”I should not like my worst enemy to live in such a hell.” The family was hypocrite and unkind to servants. The high quality Marie could not stand the low and calculating spirit of her employer. She wrote:”I learned to know the human race a little better by being there. I learned that the characters described in novels really do exist, and that one must not enter into contact with people who have been demoralized by wealth.”
Fortunately, Marie was offered a governess position in the country side with a higher salary. She took the job in January, 1886. Her life in the new family went on nicely with typical nuisances like naughtiness of the children until the eldest son of the family came home for his holidays. They quickly fell in love and planned to get married. She was not yet nineteen and he was only a little older. The response to the engagement was immediate. Father fell into a rage and Mother almost fainted. How could a upper echelon boy marry a poor governess? The young student retreated and was beaten. Marie withdrew into coldness and silence. However, Marie could not take the step of leaving because she needed the money to support her sister. It was better for her to swallow her pride and stay as nothing had happened.
Unhappy in love, disappointed in her intellectual dream, and financial burden, Marie tried to forget her fate, the rut in which she felt herself stuck forever. In the letters that followed later, she turned toward her family to pour out advice and offer support. She wanted them to have full lives.
Bronya wrote to Marie in March 1890 to break the news of her plan to get engaged soon and invite her to join them in Paris next year. Marie hesitated by the invitation with the excuses of caring for the aging father and the more urgent needs of her siblings. She postponed the study in order to save some more money. Marie finally went to Paris to pursue her university study in Paris in the Fall of 1891.
It is hardly imaginable how a foreign girl could live on a meager budget of 40 rubles a month that had to pay rents, food, clothing, books, and all the expenses in the university. She lived a Spartan life and spent all the time studying. Marie finished in first place to earn her Bachelor’s degree in Physics 1893 and second place of B. S. degree in Mathematics in 1894.
Marie met her future husband, Pierre Curie, through a mutual friend couples in early Spring 1894. Pierre was already a renowned researcher in Physics. The relationships between the two developed smoothly along the exchanges of scientific discussions and encouragement at work. Pierre pursued Marie eagerly as he was attracted by her intelligence, devotion to science, and kind nature. His proposal to be partners in scientific research finally overcame Marie’s hesitations. They were married in July 1895. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 was awarded to Antoine Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie.
Single Mother
They had two daughters: Irene (born in 1897), and Eve (born in 1904). Life is not so kind to Marie again. Pierrer died two year later in an accident after eve was born. Marie raised two young children as a celebrated scientist. Irene and Eve were close to their mother. The bonding was so strong that prompted Eve to write the biography of her mother to preserve the true life of Marie Curie without distortions by fames.
Her arduous work in isolating radium won the honor of Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1911. She was the first person to win two Nobel prizes in two different fields. Marie Curie contributed greatly to our understanding of radioactivity and the effects of x-rays. She received two Nobel prizes for her brilliant work, but died of leukemia (at 67), caused by her repeated exposure to radioactive material.
No words can better sum up the life of Madame Curie than what Eve wrote in her book.
“What in Marie was even rare than her work or her life: the immovable structure of a character; the stubborn effort of an intelligence; the free immolation of a being that could give all and take nothing, could even receive nothing; and above all the quality of a soul in which neither fame nor adversity could change the exceptional purity.”
“It seems to me, rather, that I have always lived near the poor student, haunted by dreams, who was Marya Sklodovska long before I came into the world.”
Einstein said:”Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted”. She did not know how to be famous.
Additional Comments:
Irene Joliot Curie jointly with her husband, Frederic Joliot, received Nobel Prize award for chemistry in 1935. Eve Curie was not interested in science, but rather in humanity. She wrote the biography of Madame Curie to express her love to her mother. Her husband, Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr., collected Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), where she served also.
For Further Reading:
written in October, 2012