As a team, the Curies worked to separate the substances in these ores and then used the electrometer to make radiation measurements to "trace" the minute amount of unknown radioactive element among the fractions that resulted. She had found that two uranium ores, pitchblende and chalcolite, were much more radioactive than pure uranium, and concluded their highly radioactive nature was due to as yet undiscovered elements. Intrigued by his wife's findings, Pierre joined forces with her. She coined the term "radioactivity" to describe this unique effect, which she also found in thorium compounds. She also validated his conclusion that those minerals with a higher proportion of uranium emitted the most intense rays.Īnd she took those findings one step further, forming the hypothesis that the emission of rays by uranium compounds was an atomic property of the element uranium-something built into the very structure of its atoms. Marie conducted numerous experiments confirming Becquerel's observations that the electrical effects of uranium rays are constant, regardless of whether solid or pulverized, pure or in a compound, wet or dry, or whether exposed to light or heat. He received his PhD in March 1895, along with a promotion to a professorship at the Municipal School, and the couple married three months later.įor her own doctorate, Marie chose to focus on the mysterious uranium rays discovered in early 1896 by Henri Becquerel, a few months after Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of x-rays. It was Marie who encouraged Pierre to write up this latter work as a doctoral thesis. Today, the temperature at which permanent magnetism disappears is known as the "Curie point." Pierre later discovered a fundamental relationship between magnetic properties and temperature. They used this effect to build a piezoelectric quartz electrometer to measure faint electric currents, which Marie would use in her research. They found that when pressure is applied to certain crystals, they generate electrical voltage, and when placed in an electric field, those same crystals became compressed. He earned a master's degree by age 18, and three years later discovered the piezoelectric effect with his older brother, Jacques. The son of a respected physician, Pierre had the benefit of private tutoring as a child, soon demonstrating a passion and gift for mathematics. In the spring of 1894, Marie's search for laboratory space led to a fateful introduction to Pierre Curie, a scientist some 10 years her senior who had done pioneering work on magnetism. Although her math and science background was woefully inadequate, Marie worked hard to catch up with her peers, and eventually finished first in her master's degree physics course, also earning a second in mathematics the following year. Marie set out for Paris, in the fall of 1891 to pursue studies at the University of Paris' prestigious Sorbonne. She worked as a governess for several years, helping pay for Bronya's tuition at medical school in Paris.įinally, it was her turn. Instead, she, her sister Bronya, and several other friends attended a "floating university": an illegal night school whose classes met in changing locations to evade the czarist authorities. Marie could not enroll at the University of Warsaw women were not admitted. The family was poor, but her father exposed Marie and all her siblings to the classics of literature, as well as science. Her father was a schoolteacher who had lost his prestigious position because of his pro-Polish sentiments at a time when Poland was divided up among Austria, Prussia and czarist Russia. Pierre and Marie Curie made history not only in that respect, but also because their scientific teamwork led to the discovery of radioactivity and two new elements in the periodic table, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics.Ī native of Poland, Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowska. Women physicists were a rarity in the 19 th century, but even rarer were husband-and-wife collaborative teams. Pierre and Marie Curie shortly after their wedding.
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