Мария Кюри (Краткая история)

Maria Salomea Skłodowska was born on the 7th of November, 1867

in Warsaw, and was the youngest of five children.

Her father, Władysław Skłodowski, was a math and physics teacher,

and her mother, Bronisława Boguska, was the principal

of a prestigious girls' school.

In 1876, when Maria was 9 years old, her older sister

Zofia died of typhus, and two years later, at the age of 42,

her mother, who had been suffering from tuberculosis for many years, died.

The stress caused the girl a deep depression,

as a result of which she reconsidered her religious

views and chose to become an atheist.

Maria was distinguished by diligence and hard work in her studies

and graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal.

She craved to continue her education, but women's

rights in Poland at that time were severely restricted,

and only men were admitted to the University of Warsaw.

Therefore, Maria had to be educated

in clandestine women's courses, which had the informal

name “Flying University”.

During these courses, she had the opportunity to listen to lectures

by prominent Polish scientists of the time, which further

strengthened Maria's desire to pursue science in the future.

The only way to fulfill this dream was to go

to another country to study, and Maria and her older sister,

Bronisława, agreed to take turns getting their education.

While Bronisława went to Paris to study

medicine, Maria worked as a governess to pay

for her older sister's education.

A year later, Maria was convinced of the naivety of their plan.

Not only did she have to support her sister for a few years,

giving her half of the salary, but she also had to help

her aging father.

Nevertheless, she persisted in self-education,

getting up at six in the morning and reading books on physics

and mathematics.

Bronisława, thanks to her sister, received a medical education,

and invited Maria to her house.

In 1891, at the age of 24, Maria came to Paris

and entered the faculty of Natural Sciences at the oldest

university in France — the Sorbonne, where she studied chemistry, physics

and mathematics.

She was one of 23 female students among the faculty's 1,825

students.

At the same time, of the 9,000 students then studying at the University of Paris,

only 210 were women.

By the end of her studies, Maria became one of the best students

at the University, graduated first among her classmates

in 1893, and received two degrees — a degree

in physics and mathematics.

At the age of 27, she met the head of the laboratory

at the Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry,

Pierre Curie.

Maria hoped that he would be able to give her

the opportunity to work in his laboratory.

Pierre liked the frail, fair-haired, gray-eyed

girl, and he gave Maria a small corner in his

laboratory.

So, having become close at first on the basis of a passion for physics,

scientists didn’t notice how romantic feelings arose between them.

In July 1895, Pierre and Marie were married without the traditional

wedding of the time.

The wedding took place in the suburbs of Paris, where Pierre lived

with his parents.

The young refused religious services and rings, and instead

of a wedding dress Skłodowska put on a dark blue suit,

in which she later worked for many years in the laboratory.

Maria decided to take a double surname, and later

she became known in the world of science as Skłodowska-Curie.

After the wedding, the couple went on a wedding

trip to the Paris region on bicycles,

which they bought with money received as

wedding gift.

In 1897, Curie completed her research on

the magnetic properties of steels and began looking for a topic

for her dissertation.

She decided on research on radioactivity,

and involved Pierre, who had already

left the position of head of the laboratory and began teaching

at the Sorbonne.

They began to study the radioactivity of uranium compounds obtained

from different deposits.

The University couldn’t provide the couple with laboratories,

so they had to work in storerooms and sheds,

at the back of the Institute.

From 1898 to 1902, the Curie processed and explored

more than eight tons of uranium ore.

As a result of these studies, the existence

of a new element unknown until that time was proved,

which was called by the couple “Radium”,

which means “radiant” in Latin.

In the same year, 1898, they discovered another new element —

“Polonium”, named after the birthplace of Maria, Poland.

In 1903, Maria and Pierre Curie received the Nobel prize

in physics “For outstanding services in joint research

of radiation phenomena”.

The monetary award helped the couple buy the necessary

equipment for further research and buy a bath in

their modest apartment, which they still

didn’t have.

On the 19th of April, 1906, a tragedy occurred in the family: Pierre

was hit to death by a horse-drawn carriage.

The event affected Maria so much that she

fell into a severe depression for several months.

Six months later, she was appointed to replace her husband

at the University of Paris, becoming the first female

professor in the history of the University and France as a whole.

In 1908, she became a professor and two years later,

Marie Curie was nominated for election to the French

Academy of Sciences.

Since no woman had previously been elected as a member

of the Academy, the nomination immediately led to a fierce debate

between supporters and opponents of her membership in this conservative

organization.

As a result, a few months later, Marie Curie's candidacy

was rejected in the election by a margin

of just two votes.

After that, Maria categorically refused to put forward her

candidacy for election to the Academy.

Also, she refused the order of the Legion of Honor offered

to her by the government in the same year.

In 1911, Marie Curie received the Nobel prize in chemistry

“For outstanding achievements in the development of chemistry: the discovery

of the elements "Radium" and "Polonium", the isolation of radium

and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element”.

International recognition, along with the support of the French

government, helped Skłodowska-Curie open

the “Radium Institute” in Paris in 1913.

It had two departments — “Radioactive Laboratory”,

under the direction of Maria herself, and “Laboratory for Biological

Research and Radiotherapy”, which was headed by the prominent

French physician Claudius Regaud.

Immediately after the outbreak of the World War I, Maria Skłodowska-Curie,

who was appointed director of the Red Cross Radiology

Service, took up the equipment and maintenance of X-ray

portable devices for screening the wounded.

Mobile X-ray stations, went around hospitals, helping surgeons

perform operations. Maria

trained military medics in the use of radiology,

such as detecting bullets in the body of a wounded person using

X-rays. As a result,

during the war years, Maria and her trained people

took more than a million X-rays of wounded soldiers.

She summarized the accumulated experience in the monograph “Radiology in War” in 1920.

In the post-war years, she continued to teach

at the Radium Institute, where she supervised the work

of students and actively promoted the use of radiology

in medicine.

In May 1921, Maria visited the United States, where President

Warren G. Harding personally presented her with 1 gram of radium

on behalf of American women to continue her experiments.

Eight years later, during his second visit

to the United States, another President, Herbert Hoover,

handed her a check for $50,000, with which she purchased

another gram of radium for therapeutic use in

a Warsaw hospital.

As a result of many years of working with radium, her health

began to deteriorate noticeably.

The fact that ionizing radiation has a negative

effect wasn’t known in those years, so many

experiments were carried out by Curie without safety measures.

Maria carried test tubes of radioactive substances

in her pocket, kept them in a drawer of her desk, and was exposed

to X-rays from unshielded

equipment.

Radiation was the cause of many of Curie's chronic

illnesses – at the end of her life, she was almost blind and suffered

from kidney disease, but the woman never thought about leaving

dangerous jobs.

On the 4th of July, 1934, at the age of 66, due to chronic

radiation sickness, Maria Skłodowska-Curie died.

Two days later, she was buried in a cemetery

in the suburbs of Paris, in the grave of her husband, Pierre Curie.

She didn’t live to see her daughter Irène awarded

the Nobel prize for the discovery of artificial radioactivity

for just over a year.

Maria Skłodowska-Curie is the most inspiring

woman in the world of science.

She was a member of 85 scientific societies and received 20 honorary

degrees.

The name of Maria Skłodowska-Curie is assigned to one of the craters

on the back side of the Moon.

Today, she is still the only woman

in the world to have won the Nobel

prize twice.

Since Maria had spent most of her life working with radioactive

elements, her papers, clothes, household furniture, and all other

items were contaminated with radiation.

All her records, stored in the national library

of France, are in lead boxes due to the exorbitant

level of radiation.

The half-life of radium is approximately 1,600 years, so

the problems with storing her things won’t go away

in the near future.

On these papers, equations and calculations for the study

of chemical elements are written in ink.

But what comes from them is in every sense the legacy

of a unique person.

Albert Einstein once said of Skłodowska that

she was the only person not tainted by fame.

And this is absolutely true.

She was a scientist who was known for her selfless work

and unapologetic perseverance in achieving her goals,

despite class, financial, and gender

barriers.

It was the story about Maria Skłodowska-Curie.

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