Marie Curie

7 Nov 1867 – 20 Apr 199542 items

sciencewomen
Pierre Curie (centre) and Marie Curie (right) with an assistant in their laboratory in Paris, early 1900s. Photograph from the Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Pierre Curie (centre) and Marie Curie (right) with an assistant in their laboratory in Paris, early 1900s. Photograph from the Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

From Freta Street to the Panthéon

Maria Skłodowska grew up in Russian-ruled Warsaw, where a girl could not go to university and Polish was taught in secret. She spent years as a governess to pay for her sister’s studies, reached Paris at twenty-four, and within seven years had found two new elements in a leaking shed. She is still the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

How it is built

Seven periods frame the life: the Warsaw childhood, the governess years at Szczuki, the student years in Paris, the shed at rue Lhomond, the Sorbonne professorship, the war and the Radium Institute. The discoveries sit inside the shed and the errands of 1914–1918 inside the war. Three events after her death carry the story to the Panthéon. Every date is Gregorian, including those from Warsaw, whose Russian rulers kept the Julian calendar twelve days behind.

Threads to follow

  • radioactivity: from uranium rays to polonium, radium and artificial radioactivity

  • nobel: two prizes of her own and one for Irène

  • poland: the country she left and never gave up

  • family: Bronia, Pierre, Irène and Ève

  • war: X-ray cars and radium on the Western Front

  • medicine: radiology, radium therapy and its cost

We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. — address at Vassar College, 14 May 1921

Items

  1. Warsaw: childhood and the Flying University

    ≈ 18 years · Warsaw

  2. Maria Skłodowska is born in Warsaw

    16 Freta Street, Warsaw

  3. Her mother dies of tuberculosis

  4. First in her class, with a gold medal

    Warsaw

  5. The Flying University, and a pact with Bronia

    Warsaw

  6. Governess at Szczuki

    ≈ 3 years, 6 months · Szczuki, near Przasnysz

  7. A forbidden engagement to Kazimierz Żorawski

    Szczuki, near Przasnysz

  8. First experiments, at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture

    Museum of Industry and Agriculture, Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, Warsaw

  9. Student years in Paris

    ≈ 2 years, 8 months · Latin Quarter garrets, Paris

  10. Arrives in Paris and enrols at the Sorbonne

    The Sorbonne, Paris

  11. Licence in physics, first in her year

    The Sorbonne, Paris

  12. Meets Pierre Curie

  13. Licence in mathematics, second in her year

    The Sorbonne, Paris

  14. Marries Pierre Curie at Sceaux

    Sceaux

  15. Irène is born

  16. The shed at rue Lhomond

    ≈ 5 years, 6 months · School of Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), rue Lhomond

  17. Pitchblende is more active than its uranium

    School of Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), rue Lhomond

  18. Polonium, named for Poland

    School of Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), rue Lhomond

  19. Radium is announced

    School of Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), rue Lhomond

  20. A decigram of radium chloride

    School of Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), rue Lhomond

  21. Doctorate at the Sorbonne

    The Sorbonne, Paris

  22. Nobel Prize in Physics, with Pierre and Becquerel

  23. Ève is born

  24. Pierre Curie is killed on the rue Dauphine

    Rue Dauphine at the Pont Neuf, Paris

  25. Professor at the Sorbonne

    ≈ 8 years, 2 months · The Sorbonne, Paris

  26. Her first lecture

    The Sorbonne, Paris

  27. The Académie des sciences turns her down

  28. The first Solvay Conference

    Hotel Metropole, Brussels

  29. The Langevin affair breaks

  30. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alone

    Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Stockholm

  31. In hiding with Hertha Ayrton

    Highcliffe, Hampshire

  32. The First World War

    ≈ 4 years, 2 months

  33. The Institut du Radium is finished

    Institut du Radium, Curie pavilion, rue Pierre-Curie, Paris

  34. Taking France’s radium to Bordeaux

    Bordeaux

  35. Irène runs X-ray posts in Belgium

    Hoogstade, Belgium

  36. The Radium Institute years

    ≈ 15 years · Institut du Radium, Curie pavilion, rue Pierre-Curie, Paris

  37. A gram of radium from President Harding

    The White House, Washington

  38. The Warsaw Radium Institute opens

    Radium Institute, Wawelska Street, Warsaw

  39. Irène and Frédéric make radioactivity

    Institut du Radium, Curie pavilion, rue Pierre-Curie, Paris

  40. Death at Sancellemoz

    Sancellemoz sanatorium, Passy, Haute-Savoie

  41. Irène Joliot-Curie wins the Nobel Prize

  42. ≈ 59 years

  43. Pierre and Marie Curie enter the Panthéon

    The Panthéon, Paris