Mary Curie
...rre Curie got married in 1895. The two of them combined probably made up the best team of scientists ever. Pierre had made important discoveries about magnetism. Marie decided to follow this up by looking at the magnetic properties of steel. In the same year of their marriage, a German Scientist by the name of Wilhelm Roentgen made an accidental discovery. He found that certain substances produced rays of energy that would pass through soft materials as opposed to hard materials. Due to the fact that scientists often use the symbol "x" to stand for anything unknown, he called his mysterious discovery the "x-ray." The x-ray was more than an amusing puzzle. By directing x-rays and photographic film at a solid object that consisted of both soft and hard substances a positive image can be made of the hard substance. A prime example would be the human body. This discovery now made it possible to look inside the human body without performing surgery. Within the few days of the findings, x-rays were used to locate a bullet in a man’s leg. The world of medicine had acquired a major new tool for examining the sick and injured. The year after Roentgen’s discovery, a French researcher and a friend of the Curie’s, Antoine Henri Becquerel found that a rare substance called uranium gave off rays that seemed to be very much like the x-rays that Wilhelm Roentgen had described. In 1897, the year of Roentgen’s discovery, Marie Curie gave birth to her very first daughter, Irene. Despite being caught up in family life, Marie was still determined to go on with her scientific work. She decided to follow up Becquerel’s discovery and do special research on the study of uranium and the rays it produced. Elements are the raw materials of our universe. Everything is made up of these basic substances. Scientists are able to break things down into their various elements and tests can be made to discover its array of properties. In the small damp laboratory in the back of Sorbonne’s School of Physics and Chemistry, Marie began a long, tedious and painstaking series of experiments that tested every element known to man. She found that only the two elements uranium and thorium gave off rays. "Radioactivity" was the name Marie gave to this property. Marie soon again made another important discovery about a mineral called ailed pitch-blend, a black substance, somewhat stiff like that of tar, which contains tiny quantities of uranium but absent of thorium. Pitchblende gave off eight times more rays than the uranium that it contained. It was utilizing Marie’s new term, more radioactive. Marie figured out that pitchblende must therefore contain another element, which was also radio-active that no one had discovered as of yet. Pierre was so overwhelmed with this discovery, he quit his own work to join in his wife’s research and find out more on this new element. The Curie team decided to call it radium. Marie realized that the new element within the pitchblende was in minute quantities only; therefore, to isolate any respectable amount to test and measure large portions of pitchblende were needed. To separate the radium from the pitchblende, it would have to be heated, which purifies the substance. While working with the pitchblende, another element was discovered which wasn’t radioactive, therefore not radium. Marie named this element polonium, in honor of her native homeland Poland. Marie’s experiments were now being conducted in an abandoned wooden shed, furnished with only old kitchen tables, a cast-iron stove and a blackboard. One evening, in 1902, after four long years of exhausting work, Marie decided to go back to their lab and check on the experiments they had done earlier in the day. When Marie and Pierre got to the laboratory, they saw a "faint blue glow" in the darkness; it was the radium. Radium proved to be one of the world’s most important discoveries, especially for its miraculous medical uses. Radium was measured to be two million times more radioactive than uranium. The smallest amount of radium was capable of giving off immense radiation. Radium is extremely powerful, and unless used with care and in a controlled environment, very dangerous. Unfortunately, this was not known in the days of the Curies. While working with radioactive materials, both Pierre and Marie suffered from many illnesses and pains. They encountered aching arms and legs, sores, colds and blisters that never seemed to go away. They often pinned these problems to their lack of rest due to being in the laboratory. Only later did the two connect their improvement in health with their absence from the radium. The Curies great discovery prompted scientists and doctors to work and further develop its uses. It was found that radiation could be used to destroy unhealthy growth in the human body, thus helping to stop cancer. Besides being able to cure, radium can also kill. Handling and controlling the radium is the first and foremost dilemma. The Curies found this out the hard way... The discovery of radium did, however, bring the Curies something they were proud of. In 1903, Marie Curie was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science. At the awards ceremony, Marie showed how grateful she was by wearing a new dress. The Curies were then showered with awards and honors from then on. That same year, Pierre was invited to London to give a lecture on radium. In November of that year, the Royal Society, Britain’s leading association of scientists, presented Pierre and his wife with one of its highest awards, the Davy Medal. Not a month later, they heard from the Academy of Sciences in Sweden that the Nobel Prize for physics was to be awarded to the Curies along with Henri Becquerel. Marie and Pierre felt too ill to make the journey to Sweden to accept the prize in person, so Becquerel accepted the medals for them. The Nobel Prize included a rather large sum of money... 70,000 gold francs. The Curies accepted the money in order to finance their experiments. This released Pierre from his teaching so that he could concentrate on research and to repay to kindness and support they had received from their friends and family over the years. They also gave gifts to poor Polish students and made a few improvements to their small apartment. One new comer that the Curies didn’t mind was Eve, their second daughter, born in December of 1904. Her arrival didn’t disrupt the Curies research and teaching, as their first child Irene had threatened. The Curie’s lust for science still lingered. In the year of 1905, Pierre was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences and became a Professor of Physics at the Sorbonne. Early in the following year, tragedy struck. Crossing the road in a shower of rain, Pierre stepped out from behind a cab straight into the path of a heavy horse drawn wagon. The driver tried to stop the wagon, but all was in vain. The weight of his load was too great for him to stop, and the left back wheel crushed Pierre as he lay stunned in the road. Pierre Curie died instantly. Marie was shattered by the news of her husband’s death but soon recovered the determination to carry on with her work. The French government proposed to recognize Pierre’s work to the nation by granting Marie a pension for herself and her children. She refused saying, "I am young enough to earn my living and that of my children..." The Sorbonne agreed with her because The Faculty of Science voted unanimously that she should succeed Pierre as Professor. It was a unique tribute, for she became not only the first woman professor at Sorbonne but the first at any French university. Marie had felt it was her duty to succeed her husband. He had always said he would have liked to see Marie teach a class at Sorbonne. Marie at last showed her final feeling on the matter by the way in which she gave her first public speech lecture to a packed crowd. In the year of 1910, four years after Pierre’s death, Marie published a long account of her discoveries of radioactivity. This led to her being awarded a second Nobel Prize. Not for another fifty years would anyone accomplish such a remarkable honor. This time, Marie went to Stockholm in Sweden to accept her prize in person. 1911 should have been a year of triumph, but it turned out...