Marie Curie: The Challenges of Being the First

Marie Curie was first in many things: the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and the first woman professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris – to name a few. She made a way from a Polish girl who couldn’t get a proper education in her native country to one of the most prominent scientists of all time.

A very short Marie Curie bio

Marie Curie was born in Poland as Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867. As a woman, she wasn’t allowed a higher education, so she entered Flying University, a semi-secret school with extra opportunities outside the government’s control. Marie wanted to pursue an academic career, which wasn’t possible in Poland. Considering the situation, Marie worked as a governess to make money, and in 1891 moved to Paris and enrolled at Sorbonne University. Her majors were physics and maths.  30-years-old Marie did what no other woman in France had ever done before: she received a Ph.D. in physics.

Marie’s lifestyle wasn’t bohemian or stylish in France. She lived on bread and water, stayed late in the library, and sometimes even fainted from hunger and exhaustion. In Paris, she met Pierre Curie, a physicist who became her husband and a science partner. Together, they worked on numerous projects and made significant discoveries in both physics and chemistry.

What discoveries did Marie Curie make?

Marie was fascinated by the studies of radiation by Louis Becquerel. In 1896, this scientist discovered that uranium could emit X-ray radiation. The strength of this radiation depended primarily on the quantity of the element and didn’t change under different chemical influences.

Inspired by these findings, Marie continued to study radiation and, particularly, the features of uranium. When she examined the rocks rich in this element – called pitchblende – Marie discovered that the samples were much more radioactive than uranium only could allowed. This revelation led her to conclude that there must be something else in those pitchblendes.

After nearly 3 years of experiments, the Curies isolated the pure substance they named polonium – in honor of Marie’s motherland. It turned out that polonium was 400 more radioactive than uranium. To extract 0,1 g of pure radium, Marie and Pierre had to process about 10 tons of pitchblende manually.

The continued radiation studies led to the discovery of radium, from the Latin “radii” for rays. It was a more potent element with twice as much radiation as polonium. The bottles with extracted radium lit the laboratory at night.

In addition, radium emitted energy on its own, much like uranium. The element had the power to change the air and make it conduct electricity better. Marie Curie named this phenomenon radioactivity. She also determined a measure for radioactive emissions, which became a standard international unit – the curie. 

Marie Curie: the First Woman to Win the Nobel Prize

In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie and Louis Becquerel won the Noble Prize in Physics for their research on radiation. In truth, Marie wasn’t going to receive the award because she was not a man. Pierre insisted they did the work together so he wouldn’t take the credit alone. Finally, Marie was included and became the first woman winner of the Nobel Prize in history.

The mystical ability of radium to gleam in darkness inspired many companies to create products with this chemical. Lipstick and watch dials, chocolate, toothpaste, and even cigarettes – radium was omnipresent in numerous ranges of goods. Radium became a magic cure for grey hair, impotence, and numerous diseases. This obsession was called “Radium Crase” and lasted until further studies revealed the danger of the new element.

The money from the Prize allowed the Curies to open a full-scale laboratory for further research and new projects. In 1906, Pierre died in a road accident, and Marie was offered Pierre’s job as a Sorbonne professor, making her the first woman in this position in the institution. She continued her research on radium and radioactivity, which brought her a second Nobel Prize in chemistry.  Marie Curie was the first person to win the Noble Prize twice and the first to win in two different fields: chemistry and physics.

At the time, Marie didn’t realize the danger of radiation and worked without any precautions. No one did, actually. Soon, she began to experience pains, constant fatigue, and coughs. She died in 1934 from aplastic anemia caused by continuous exposure to radiation.  The original papers of Marie Curie are so contaminated with radiation that one has to wear protection to work with them. It is estimated that Curie’s possessions will remain radioactive for 1,500 years. Even her coffin emits some quantity of radiation.

How did her discoveries influence the world?

Marie Curie’s work wasn’t purely academic, but gave a push to modern science and medicine all over the world.

First of all, Curie’s study on radioactivity was the first in a series to show that atoms might consist of smaller particles. Marie noticed that radiation emitted from radium made atoms fall apart, which brought the idea that atoms consist of something smaller. In the following years, scientists detected the electron, the proton, and the neutron. Moreover, they discovered that when an atom alters its inner parts, it could change its identity. Marie Curie proved two principles of chemistry wrong: that an atom is the smallest particle and that one element cannot transform into another. This discovery, alongside Einstein’s E = mc2, made it possible to create an atomic bomb.

In 1918, Marie Curie founded the Radium Institute at the University of Paris, which became one of the world’s best centers for studying radioactivity. Following its success, Marie opened a similar institution in Warsaw in 1932. Given the active use of radium and radioactivity in many industries and medicine, Curie wanted to ensure their constant scientific examination. After World War 2, Warsaw’s Radium Institute became a specialized cancer research center.

All medical treatment based on radioactivity began with Marie Curie. Thanks to her discoveries, we have radiotherapy (RT) that is often used for cancer treatment. Usually, radiotherapy may be used in the early stages of cancer to make the tumor shrink. While this method is not a panacea, 4 out of every 10 cancer therapies include it in the treatment plan.

During World War I, Marie Curie designed mobile X-ray units for field hospitals. This equipment defined which limbs could be saved and which should be amputated. According to statistics, around a million soldiers went through the machine. Curie built several radiological machines and thus saved countless hands and legs from unnecessary amputation.