Great Minds: Marie Curie

Tweet

I’ve been planning to feature famous and influential Scientists here at Scientific Blabber. And now let me start with Marie Curie as we celebrate her 144^th birthday (thanks for the heads up Google!).

Born Marie Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She studied Chemistry and Physics and planned to be a school teacher like her parents but when she married Pierre Curie decided to help her husband on the study of radioactivity.

The husband and wife tandem Marie and Pierre Curie discovered two radioactive element called Radium and Polonium.  

In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physics. The citation was, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." Henri Becquerel was awarded the other half for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity.

In 1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The citation by the Nobel Committee was, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."

Source: Nobelprize.org