MARIA SKLODOWSKA CURIE

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ORDINARY EXTRAORDINARY HERO

• MARIA SKLODOWSKA - CURIE

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From all famous persons Maria Curie is only,
which the celebrity didn't spoil for.

• This photograph ran the world around and it
  commemorated Maria for future generations as the
  grand lady of physics, the symbol women
  -scientist. This wonderful Polish woman, the
  two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, gave the life
  back to the beloved field of examinations.

Woman looking in concentration at the test tube
containing radium
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She was an impatient and thirsty for knowledge
child. When she was 15 years, she left the
secondary school with a gold medal. In spite of
outstanding results in learning, she wasn't
accepted for a university. Therefore, she decided
for studies in Warsaw on the clandestine The
Floating University.
Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw as the fifth
and youngest child on November 7, 1867.
For Maria a great dream were studies in Paris -
on Sorbonne. However the lack of financial funds
forced her to take up work as the governess,
which dealt in years 1884-1891.
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In Paris
Maria and Peter continued A.H. Becquerels
researches in this subject. In primitive working
conditions in a lonely shed, which some time
before it, was a prosectory of medic school, with
some tables, stores and gas burners, they worked
from early morning to late night.
Emotion, which bloomed between them and desire
for the scientific work determined her settling
in France. In July Maria and Peter got a civil
marriage 1895.

• Only being 24 years old - in 1891, she left
  for Paris and she started studying mathematics
  and physics. After two years she got the
  bachelor's degree of physical sciences - with the
  first deposit amongst all students. However in
  1894 she got the bachelor's degree in
  mathematical theories. In between she met Peter
  Curie.

They had two daughters Irena and Ewa-Denise.
Motherly duties didn't prevent Maria from
undertaking great examinations together with the
husband in the field of the radioactivity.
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Working

• The effect of great work was achieved in
  July 1898 by big radioactive element, which in
  honor of name of Marias homeland, she and her
  husband called polonium. After other
  experiments, some months later, they discovered a
  more radioactive element radium.

This device for precise electrical measurement,
invented by Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques,
was essential for Marie's work.
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In 1903 Maria got a PhD in physics sciences of
Researches of ray-make substances and singled
out with Nobel award of Physic of explore
polonium and radium (with Peter Curie and Henry
Becquerel).
Nobel Prizes
Maria was the only one woman of all laureats of
science award until 1935, when her daughter Irena
Joliot-Curie with her husband Frideric got the
Nobel award of chemistry of explore artificial
ray-make.
In 1911 Maria got two Nobel awards, this tame in
area of chemistry of separate pure radium and
metalic radium. Consequently of this she was the
first person, who twice got this award.
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• During the first World War, Maria organized
  a mobile radiology station in France and Belgium,
  which only she usually operated, where researched
  hurted people and instructed personel. With her
  own initiative she got 20 cars and organized
  moving alert with Roentgens aparature.

In July 1916, she made a driving license in order
to drive a car (she was first women, who did it).
Her alert knew the whole front and French
soldiers called cars with Roentgens aparature
small Curie.
W A R D U T Y
Next to the alert, Maria Sklodowska-Curie
organized 220 radiology stations and instructed
human resources to operated them. Human resources
operated about 3 milions instances of injuries
among French soldiers.
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Maria died in the evening in 4 of July in 1934 in
Sancellemoz sanatorium in Sabaudia. She was in
this sanatorium in order to cure tuberculosis.
But researches said, it is an angry anemia,
called up because of long working with ray-made
substances. She was buried in Sceaux, near
Paris, near her husband. In 1995 debris of Peter
ana Maria were transported to Paris Panteon.
Marias is the only women buried in French
Panteon.
Pierre Curie was killed in a street accident in
Paris on April 19, 1906. After the death of
Marias husband, she was called up to Peters
old job of manager of catedral of physic of Paris
University. She was first woman profesor at
this university.
Tragedy and adjustment Life goes on
Thanks to her works and organization in 1912 in
Paris Radium Institute was created, in which she
lead the area of physical-chemical unit she died.
In this time institute was called Curies
Institute.
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Making one's discoveries, Maria Sklodowska-Curie
created the bases for development of contemporary
physics and chemistry as well as changing the way
of comprehending world. The research on radium,
polonium and the radioactivity found a variety of
appliances in technique, the technology. These
discoveries had paramount meaning for medicine.
By radiotherapy which caused the revolution in
fighting cancer, they found applications in
diagnostics.
From the initiative of Maria arisen Radium
Institute in Warsaw, which today is called
Onkologist Institute named Maria
Sklodowska-Curie. In this place people use the
curing use of radium to rescue life and health.
The career of our outstanding countrywoman shows,
that if we want something very much we can reach
it. Her life and academic achievements, in a
convincing way, are proving that women are gifted
and able of great things. Women, Wives, Mothers
are able to effectively link the real life with
the life of a scientist. And such abilities, in
my opinion, are worthy of the title of a hero.
Radiotherapy today
Thanks to Marias works science about ray-making
was created. Thanks to it we can deepen our
knowledge about materials. Researches of natural
ray-making followed to explore artifical
ray-making.
This wonderful woman, in spite of not-supporting
sociopolitical circumstances (seizures, handicaps
in educating girls), aspired hard to the
realization of her dreams. However these dreams
found fulfillment in France and their effects are
being used worldwide.
Radiotherapy before
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Lemire L., Marie Curie, Swiat Ksiazki, Warszawa
  2003.
• Curie E., Maria Curie, PWN, Warszawa 1997.
• Curie E., Maria Curie, PWN, Warszawa 1958.
• Pasachoff N., Marie Curie and the Science the
  radioactivity, Oxford University Press, 1996.
• http//biografie.servis.pl/sklodow.php
  17.10.2007.
• Encyklopedia PWN, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN S.A.
  Warszawa 2005.
• Strona internetowa Uniwersytetu Opolskiego.
• http//muzeum.if.pw.edu.pl/ 20.09.2007.
• http//www.staff.amu.edu.pl/zbzw/ph/sci/msckonf/1
  6/nauka_a_1.html 20.09.2007.

by Daria Kaluzna