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By Audrey W.
In a world marked by countless firsts, Curie truly accomplished it all. Marie Curie, the first female Nobel laureate, won two prizes in different fields, standing out as the only woman among four recipients. A trailblazer in STEM, her groundbreaking work reshaped modern science (Abergel et al.). Born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, Maria Skłodowska Curie became distinguished for her research on radioactivity. With her husband Pierre Curie, a professor at the School of Physics and Chemistry, they discovered two elements: polonium and radium, with atomic numbers 84 and 88 respectively. Curie was a woman who illuminated the characteristics of perseverance, strength, and curiosity, and her legacy extends far beyond the laboratories of her time.
Born into a poor family, she was the youngest of five children. When her mother and father died, she became a governess in order to support herself. During that time, she would read to try to satisfy her curiosity and thirst for knowledge, since she could not afford to receive higher education. Fortunately, her sister offered to go to Paris with her and attend university. Curie grasped the opportunity while she had the chance and entered Sorbonne University in Paris in 1891. There, she studied physics and mathematics and met her husband, Pierre Curie, a scientist who worked in the city.
Sharing an interest in the invisible rays that uranium gives off, Pierre and Marie Curie became researchers at the School of Chemistry and Physics and started their pioneering work. At that time, the new phenomenon of “rays [being] able to pass through solid matter, fog, and photographic film and [cause] air to conduct electricity” was found by Professor Henry Becquerelsparking significant interest within the Curie couple (“Marie Curie the Scientist”). Marie Curie also found that pitchblendes were extremely radioactive. Pitchblendes are brown or black minerals that contain massive amounts of uranite and radium. However, Marie did not believe the radioactivity came from the uranium alone; there had to be something else causing the radioactivity. From this conclusion, Curie believed she had found a new element, while other scientists doubted that conclusion.
Even though many people challenged Curie’s results, she and her husband undertook to find the unknown element. To find the element, they ground the pitchblende into a fine powder, added acid to separate the mix, and discovered polonium, which was named after her birthplace (“The Nobel Prize | Women Who Changed Science | Marie Curie”). The polonium they extracted came in the form of a black powder, and they found it to be 330 times more radioactive than uranium (“Marie Curie the Scientist”). Even after discovering polonium, they found that the liquid left behind was still very radioactive. Therefore, they knew that there were more radioactive elements that they had yet to discover.
Partnering with an Australian company that needed the uranium, Marie Curie bought several tons of waste that were more radioactive than those of the pitchblende. After four years, she barely extracted “enough pure radium to fill a thimble” (Jardins). When studying and working with radioactive elements, both Curies were plagued by burns and fatigue. Considering their deplorable conditions, it was impressive that Curie could accurately measure the atomic weight of radium as 225.93. In 1898, the Curies officially discovered the element radium with the atomic number 88.
Curie did not stop after discovering two radioactive elements. She continued to study to quench her thirst for knowledge. In 1903, she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics, and the professors who read her thesis considered it the “greatest single contribution to science ever written” (Jardins). When rumors about her receiving a Nobel prize started to circulate, many people attributed the discoveries to Becquerel and Pierre. However, Pierre insisted that Marie Curie was the head of the study and that the credit should go to her. In 1903, Pierre, Becquerel, and Curie shared the Nobel Prize in physics, the first Nobel Prize ever awarded to a woman. In 1911, she won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, but she fell painstakingly ill. After a long recovery, in 1913, she built 18 X-ray stations that facilitated the treatment of soldiers during World War I, and she remarkably operated and fixed these stations herself. Overall, she established 200 more stations.
In 1934, Marie Curie died at the age of sixty-seven. Her decades of exposure to radioactive elements left her chronically ill, with nearly blinding cataracts and a cause of death of either severe leukemia or anemia (Grady). Her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and her husband, both Nobel Prize winners, continued to work with radioactivity and died of radiation-related diseases. Relating to modern medicine, the Curies found that radium “destroyed diseased cells faster than healthy cells” and thus can be used to treat cancerous tumors. This discovery is what we now know as radiation therapy, which uses “high-energy beams such as X-rays or protons” to kill cancerous cells (Frysh).
Marie Curie's extraordinary journey in the realm of STEM not only broke gender barriers but also redefined the landscape of scientific achievement. Born into adversity, Curie's indomitable spirit, unwavering curiosity, and relentless pursuit of knowledge propelled her from the humblest of beginnings to becoming one of the most accomplished women in the world. Curie's legacy endures as a symbol of hope for aspiring scientists, doctors, and researchers alike, especially for women in STEM. Beyond her accolades, Marie Curie's contributions to medical science, particularly the development of radiation therapy, continue to save lives and shape modern healthcare. Marie Curie has truly left a lasting legacy and an indelible mark that will continue to glow as bright as the elements she unveiled.
References
Abergel, Rebecca, et al. “The Enduring Legacy of Marie Curie: Impacts of Radium in 21st
Century Radiological and Medical Sciences.” International Journal of Radiation Biology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2023, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9723808/.
Des Jardins, Julie. “Madame Curie’s Passion.” Smithsonian.Com, Smithsonian Institution, 1
Frysh, Paul.“What’s the Difference between Chemotherapy and Radiation?” WebMD,
WebMD, 29 June 2020, www.webmd.com/cancer/cancer-chemotherapy-radiation-differences.
Grady, Denise. “A Glow in the Dark, and a Lesson in Scientific Peril.” The New York Times, 6
“Marie Curie the Scientist | Biog, Facts & Quotes.” Marie Curie, 2023,
“The Nobel Prize: Women Who Changed Science: Marie Curie.” The Official Website of the
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