Name: Marie Curie
Function: Scientist, physicist, mathematician, teacher, research worker
Where lived: Warsaw, Poland Where died : Passy, France
When lived: 1867 - 1934
From whom was influenced: Pierre Curie (her husband), Henri Becquerel
Who inspired: Marguerite Perey, William Duane
Other information : The 1st woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice. Her efforts with her husband Pierre led to the discovery of polonium and radium, and she championed the development of X-rays.
She died in 1934 of aplastic anemia likely caused by exposure to radiation.
Biography :
After her mother died and her father could no longer support her she became a governess, reading and studying in her own time to quench her thirst for knowledge. She never lost this passion. To become a teacher – the only alternative which would allow her to be independent – was never a possibility because a lack of money prevented her from a formal higher education. However, when her sister offered her lodgings in Paris with a view to going to university, she grasped the opportunity and moved to France in 1891.It was in Paris, in 1891, that she entered Sorbonne University, then in 1894, she met Pierre Curie – a scientist working in the city – and who she married a year later. It was also around this time that she adopted the French spelling of her name.
In 1902 Marie eventually isolated radium (as radium chloride), determining its atomic weight as 225.93. The journey to the discovery had been long and arduous.
In 1903 Marie and Pierre were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with Henri Becquerel for their combined, though separate, work on radioactivity.
In October 1914, the first machines, known as "Petits Curies", were ready, and Marie set off to the front. She worked with her daughter Irene, then aged 17, at casualty clearing stations close to the front line, X-raying wounded men to locate fractures, bullets and shrapnel.
Quote :
"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."
Marie Curie
It turns out that a brighter future requires brighter minds. In Marie Curie’s perspective, individuals are in the center of the improvement sphere. Each one is committed to work on themselves, to acquire new skills, but at the same time to share with the community, and to help other individuals that need a push. She highlights that we cannot have a large-scale impact, as long as we don’t contribute to the empowerment of the community, even if we make an individual progress. Marie Curie’s quote somehow interferes with Aesop’s citation ‘’In union, there is strength’’.
References
Book: Radioactive substances by Marie Curie, 1904
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