All kinds of fame
107
Marie Curie
Marie Curie was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland but
moved to Paris at the age of 24. She is one of the greatest
scientists ever to have lived. She was a pioneer in the field
of radioactivity and discovered the chemical elements
radium and polonium. Curie is the only person ever
to win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
She was also the first female professor at the
University of Paris.
From an early age, Marie was an exceptional
student with an amazing memory. She often
went without food and sleep while she was
studying.
She met her future husband Pierre Curie at
the university. He considered Marie a genius
and immediately wanted to work with her.
They got married and spent most of their time
together in their laboratory studying radioactive
materials. Their research led to the discovery of
radium, for which they were honoured with the Nobel
Prize for physics in 1903.
Pierre was killed in an accident in 1906 and Marie
was devastated and extremely lonely. She threw herself
even deeper into her work and won the Nobel Prize for
chemistry in 1911. She spent the 1920s raising funds
for more research into radium. In 1934 she died from a
condition caused by decades of exposure to radiation. No
one knew how deadly radium was until years later.
enced the world
