Good role model for Chinese children: Marie Curie, the mother of radium

Author: Guanqiu Qi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: Marie Curie (1867-1934), originally named Maria Sk?odowska, was born into a family of a secondary school teacher in Warsaw, the Kingdom of Poland. She was exceptionally talented from a young age, but due to financial difficulties, although she graduated from secondary school with outstanding results, she could not continue her studies. She worked as a private tutor for seven years before entering the Sorbonne University in Paris (now the University of Paris) at the age of 24, where she earned bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics three years later. She was actively engaged in scientific research and humanitarian work throughout her life and won the Nobel Prize twice. Her greatest achievement was the discovery of the new radioactive elements polonium and radium, along with her husband Pierre Curie (1859-1906). She passed away in 1934 from leukemia at the age of 67.