The Early Life Marie Curie and Her Achievements

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas” - Marie Curie. Marie Curie had to do get through lots of hardships to get where she was at. Because of this, she became successful. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to have won multiple ones as well. In this research paper, we’ll explore the early life of Marie Curie and what she did in order to accomplish her achievements.

Marie Curie’s early life had its ups and downs. Both her father, Władysław Skłodowski, and her mother, Bronisława Skłodowska were both teachers. Her mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 10. However, it didn’t affect her academics as she still excelled in school. She was the youngest of her 4 siblings; she had 3 sisters and 1 brother. Curie and her sister, Bronya, often fantasized about studying abroad and even worked super hard in order to get where they were at. Curie spent 5 years working as a tutor and spent her free time learning more about chemistry, different sciences, and math. This led to her career as a scientist as she later enrolled in a school in Paris. Due to the costs however, her diet became bad because she tried to save money. She saved money by often starving herself or eating very little (this led to her fainting at random times). Eventually, she graduated with her masters degree in physics in 1893 as a result of all her dedication and devotion to science. She later married her husband, Pierre Curie, whom she also did her research with.. Not too long after, her life and future achievements will have started.

In 1896, uranium rays were often ignored by scientists, but Marie Curie was intrigued by them. She used her husband’s/brother in law’s electrometer in order to measure faint currents passing through air that were also bombarded with uranium rays. Due to the moist air that was in the storeroom where Marie Curie was working, it dissipated the electric charge, but this didn’t stop Marie Curie from making reproducible measurements. Marie Curie actually once said, “Instead of making these bodies act upon photographic plates, I preferred to determine the intensity of their radiation by measuring the conductivity of the air exposed to the action of the rays.” With this effort, Marie had validated Becquerel’s observations by showing how even when uranium was a solid, wet or dry, or exposed to light, its electrical effects of uranium rays are constant. Marie wanted to test if other elements/minerals or just uranium could make air conduct electricity better. Luckily for her, she has the help of other chemists who donated diverse mineral samples and some of them even contained very rare elements. A little while after, in April of 1898, her research showed that thorium compounds, similar to uranium, emit Becquerel rays. In order to describe the behavior of thorium and uranium, she made the word “radioactivity.” This is the origin of her discovery of radioactivity.

In the year of 1898, both Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, discovered radium and polonium in their research of pitchblende. Her husband was appealed by her discovery that two uranium ores, pitchblende and chalcolite, were way more radioactive than pure uranium. Because of this, Pierre decided to join her in research of possible new elements instead of his crystal research. They both cooperated very well as a team since they both had their own scientific tasks to work on as they went along. Marie Curie said this about her and her husband, “Neither of us could foresee that in beginning this work we were to enter the path of a new science which we should follow for all our future.” Both of the Curies were the first to use a new method of chemical analysis in order to isolate the unknown substances of pitchblende. They did chemical procedures in order to separate the different kinds of substances in pitchblende but at times it was very demanding as they used radiation measurements after they pour off an element that could dissolve in an acid and was later separated into different kinds of compounds. As a result of all of that, a radioactive element had came. The Curies had repeated this with other various substances and used the electrometer to identify most of the radioactive fractions. With the observation of these fractions, they determined that the ones containing mostly bismuth and mostly barium were the most radioactive. Later on in July of 1898, the Curies published their conclusion the bismuth fraction had a new element. It reacted chemically the same but was radioactive, so it ended up being something new. In honor of Marie Curie’s birthplace, Poland, they named it “polonium.” Not too long after, in December of 1898, a second publication came out explaining that a discovery in the barium fraction was made where there was another element. In progress of naming the element, they had named it “radium” which was rooted from the Latin word “ray.” Although both of the chemical properties of polonium and radium were not so similar, they both had high radioactivity. Placing new elements, especially two new ones, onto the periodic table was one of the biggest achievements a scientist can do, and that’s what exactly what the Curies had achieved, but with a catch. They had to convince the scientific community that these elements discovered were actually plausible elements. Marie had to set out and separate barium and bismuth. However, this was really difficult since she did this in a shed that was formerly a medical dissecting room with poor ventilation as well. She had to use large quantities of pitchblende in order to separate barium and bismuth which was conveniently supplied by the Austrians in hope that she would find a use for a mineral their mines could yield as a waste byproduct. Sadly, Marie Curie never succeeded in isolating polonium as the concept of radioactive decay wasn’t a thing at the time.

In conclusion, Marie Curie had achieved so much in her life that bended lots of scientist’s perspectives on things. She’s contributed to useful inventions like portable x-rays that were very convenient during the First World War. So remember, when you learn about radioactivity in class or see common things like radiation therapy, to thank Marie Curie for her hard work and dedication. Thank you, Marie Curie.