Marie Curie: The Mother of Radium

Author: Su Li et al
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Marie Curie was a great French physicist and chemist, the only woman scientist in the world to win the Nobel Prize twice. Born on October 7, 1867, in a intellectual family in Warsaw, Poland, her childhood was spent in the midst of national humiliation. From a young age, she planted the seed of seeking knowledge for her homeland in her heart. With her natural talent, perseverance, and outstanding academic performance, she was admitted to the Sorbonne University in Paris. There, she greedily absorbed the nourishment of knowledge, earning dual master's degrees in physics and mathematics, and conducted independent research on the magnetism of metals. In 1895, she married the French genius Pierre Curie. The Curie couple worked together in their scientific "assault," successively discovering the radioactive elements polonium and radium, unraveling the mysteries of radioactivity. The discovery of radium earned them the Davy Medal and the Nobel Prize in Physics. However, they were not greedy for personal gain or vanity; instead, they devoted themselves to their work and science, demonstrating noble character. After Pierre Curie's passing, Marie Curie did not abandon scientific research due to grief but instead redoubled her efforts, authoring works such as General Theory of Radioactivity and Studies on Radioactive Substances, which played a significant role in the development of atomic science.
During World War I, Marie Curie disregarded her own safety and rushed to the front lines, utilizing the radium-based therapy—Curie therapy—to treat wounded soldiers, demonstrating great compassion. On July 4, 1934, Marie Curie passed away. At her farewell ceremony, people saw her hands, roughened by radium, and later praised her as a pure and noble great female scientist.