“A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere
technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him
as though they were fairy tales.” –
Marie Curie
Little did Wladislaw and Bronislava
Boguska Sklodowski know that when their fifth and final child was born on
November 7, 1867, a genius came into the world. This genius’ name was Maria Sklodowski,
or better known as Marie Curie. Marie’s
brilliant mind was not expected to be yielded as a product of her own
surroundings and situation growing up; her family was utterly poor. Her mother was forced to quit her job and her
father soon lost his due to his political views when Curie was just a child. Their small apartment was now home to the
large Curie family with the addition of lowly boarders. When she was eight, Marie’s sister caught
typhus from a boarder; she then died.
Two years later Marie’s mother died.
Despite all these hardships that formed her character and outlook on
life, Marie Curie rose above. She became
the most famous and successful woman scientist on the planet. How exactly did
she rise above? Let’s find out.
Curie’s
father himself was a teacher, so he valued education. He spent his time teaching Curie and her
siblings lessons, so much so the Curie shined in primary and secondary
schooling, even gaining a gold medal when graduating. However, Curie’s intelligence wasn’t enough
to get her into college because at the time girls were not allowed to
enroll. After taking a year off with
family friends due to her depression,Curie begun work as a private tutor. She made a deal with her sister, Bronya which
forced her to work for the next five years.
The sisters both wanted to attend Sorbonne, a university in Paris that
accepted men and women, but their financial situation wouldn’t be able to
withstand simultaneous college fees.
They decided that Bronya would go first and when she graduated, Marie
would enroll. Marie wasn’t able to wait
the next five years to be able to learn, so she joined a secret “Floating
University.” This university consisted
of men and women who would meet in different places just to learn from one
another, to gain knowledge. Five years later when Bronya graduated, Marie
attended Sorbonne in 1891 and graduated in 1893 with a master’s degree in
physics (number one in her class) and a year later with a master’s in math
(number two in her class). After earning
her degrees, she decided to look for a lab.
It was at this time she met Pierre Curie.
She
and Pierre shared a lab in Paris and soon joined their research efforts towards
Marie’s interest – radioactivity. Pierre
ended up proposing soon after, to which Marie declined but two years later she
did accept and they married. After their
first daughter, Irene, was born in 1897, the Curies continued their work in
radioactivity. They were not aware of
the health dangers that radioactivity exposes humans to. After the Curies were awarded for their
discoveries with a Nobel Prize, their
daughter Eve was born. The Curies
continued researching together until Pierre’s tragic death in 1906. He was hit by a horse and buggy.
After
her husband’s death, she took over his old position as a physics teacher at
Sorbonne. She continued her research on
her own. She even published a book and
received an installation at the Radium Institute, then receiving a job from
there. Her daughters became scientists
themselves because of her influence. On July
4, 1934, she died of leukemia caused by all her interactions with radioactivity
over the years.
Marie
Curie was a woman like no other. She
never stopped pursuing her dream of knowledge despite being a poor woman in the
1800s. She met challenges in her life with
the determination of a bull to get what she wanted, education and soon after
answers about radioactivity.
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