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Marie Sklodowska, or Marie Curie, was born on November 7, 1867. Even during childhood Marie was very smart! She had a very good memory, and at the age of sixteen she won a gold medal for completing her secondary education at the Russian lyc'ee. Her father was a great teacher of physics and mathematics, and it is obvious Marie followed in his footsteps. Henri Becquerel, who was studying X-rays at the time, found that Uranium Salt left a mark on a photographic plate. From then on Marie tried to understand the effects of energy of these Uranic Rays After Marie asked Pierre if she could go on studying (imagine that, she had to ask!), she found out the substance Thorium was "radioactive," a term she had thought of herself. They found a major discovery that radioactivity was a trait of an element and not a product of a chemical reaction. Pierre looked at the properties of radiation and Marie purified the radioactive elements. Pierre even tested radium on his skin; it burned and made a wound. Soon after radium was treating malign tumors! Marie had to deal with the prejudiced and sexist people in the world, but soon won the Nobel Prize. Marie said her joy, though was "easing human suffering." When World War I broke out, Madame Marie devoted herself to X-Radiography. Marie said, "We must act!" Her X-rays would find bullets in a soldier. Soon Marie trained 150 FEMALES to help her, even though they had almost no protection from the X-ray In July, 1934, Marie died of leukemia. She was exhausted, nearly blinded, and her fingers were very badly burnt by her precious radium. Marie also won one other Nobel Prize for her discovery of artificial radioactivity. Marie did all this in a cold hangar that one chemist said "looked more like a stable or a potato cellar." Marie was buried in the Paris Pantheon, the only woman buried there. Marie said, "One of our pleasures was to enter our workshop at night; then, all around us, we would see the luminous silhouettes of the beakers and capsules that contained our products." Although Marie was criticized by others, she shows that women can make a difference in the world no matter what. |