The Life of Madame Curie :: Essays Papers

The Life of Madame CurieMadame Curie was born mare Sklodowska on November 7,1867, in Warsaw Poland. Maria was the fifth and youngest child of Bronsilawa Boguska, a pianist, singer, and teacher, and Wladyslaw Sklodowski, a professor of mathematics and physics. Marias accomplishments began at a young age by the epoch she was sixteen she had completed inessential school and taken work as a teacher. In 1891 Maria went to Paris, while in Paris Marie attend Sorbonne University and began to follow lectures of many already closely known physicists--Jean Perrin, Charles Maurain, and Aime Cotton. It was during this time that Marie finally turned towards mathematics and physics. Within three years of attending Sorbonne Marie was already on her way to becoming the most sound recognized women in science. Marie was the ideal example of hard work. Receiving her degree in physics from the Sorbonne in 1893, she was not only the first woman to receive such a degree but she graduated numbe r one in her class. In 1894, she received her second degree in mathematics, graduating second in the class. That uniform year Marie met Pierre Curie, an aspiring French physicist. A year later Maria Sklodowska became Madame Curie. Marie and Pierre worked as a scientific team, in 1898 their achievements resulted in humanness importance, in particular the discovery of polonium (which Marie named in honor of Poland) and the discovery of Radium a few months later. The birth of her two daughters, Irene and Eve, in 1897 and 1904 did not breach Marias work. In 1903, Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. The award jointly awarded to Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel, was for the discovery of radioactivity. In December 1904 she was appointed primary(prenominal) assistant in the laboratory directed by Pierre Curie. Pierres sudden death in April 1906 was a difficult blow to Maria, but a number point in her career she was devoted to completing th e scientific work they had started. In 1911 her determination paid off, she won a second Nobel Prize (this time in chemistry) for her discovery and isolation of pure radium and radium components.