Madame Marie Curie

Portrait of Marie Curie, pioneering physicist and chemist, known for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity

Madame Marie Curie is one of the greatest and most passionate scientists humanity has ever seen. She is one of the two laureates who won the Nobel Prize twice.

Radium, invented by the world-famous lady scientist Madame Marie Curie, proved very useful in the treatment of cancer. She could sell her invention to any company for millions of pounds, but she didn't. She didn't receive a pie for her invention. She said, "It will be contrary to the essence and purpose of science". She left greed and thane-ship and chose to serve humanity. God blessed her with so much popularity due to her disinterested service that she was awarded a Nobel Prize for her prominent and outstanding work in Physics in 1903 and in Chemistry in 1911.

The dawn of her life

Madame Marie Curie was born on 7 November 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. At the age of nineteen, she started working in the house of a wealthy family. Besides chores, she had to look after a ten-year-old girl. The owner's son of the house where she was working began to like her and proposed to Madame Marie Curie. When his parents knew about this, they called all the servants together, and in front of them, they blamed and insulted Madame Curie because she wanted to become the owner of the house. That day, she realized her insult and knew that poverty was a big crime. The only truth is what the rich say. Not Marie Curie, but the wealthy son of the owner was interested in her. After being dismissed from the service, she left not only her city but also the country and became a citizen of France to get a higher education.

A life full of struggle

Marie Curie in her laboratory, surrounded by scientific equipment used in early 20th-century experiments

The shy and destitute Marie Curie got admission to the University of Paris in 1881 and devoted her life to science. She was so shy that she couldn't make any friends. Her condition was so poor that she had to spend three shillings a day, and this included room rent, food expenditure, and university fees. The conditions of her room were also so poor that it had no heating system. In winter, she could only buy two sacks of coal. Therefore, she had to use the coal very carefully, and that's why often she was to study without fire in the furnace in extreme cold.  When she felt extremely cold while sleeping, she had to take out all her clothes from the box, using half of them as a blanket and spreading the other half on the bed to avoid the extreme cold of the winter. If all this failed to stop the cold, she put her chair on herself to decrease the intensity of the cold. Due to economic constraints, she had to eat only bread and butter for several days, and several times, she fainted because of weakness.

One day, she fainted in the classroom due to hunger, and her teacher knew about her poverty. Though he was poor himself, he helped her, and in 1895, Madame Curie married him. Her husband, Professor Pierre Curie, was also a scientist. Because of her husband's name, she tagged her name with Curie. Together, they caused a stir in the world of science.

The great invention of Madame Marie Curie

Black and white photograph of Marie Curie receiving the Nobel Prize for her contributions to science

In July 1898, they both announced the discovery of an element that was four hundred percent more radioactive than Uranium. She named it "Polonium" because of the name of her country, Poland. The same year in December, the Curie family discovered another element called Radium. It is a Latin word that means "radiar," which means to shower rays. Marie and Pierre's inventions in Science will keep their names alive forever. He was very keen to take part in the work of his wife but one day while he was crossing a road in Paris, a taxi hit him to death.

The greatness of Madame Marie Curie

Commemorative statue of Marie Curie symbolizing her legacy in physics, chemistry, and women's contribution to science

At the time of marriage, their total asset were two bicycles. Marie earned her Ph.D. despite her extreme poverty. She chose a very interesting topic for her Ph.D. She decided to tell the world why rays are emitted from Uranium. It was an impossible task, but due to her hard work, she discovered an element during her experiments that was two million times more radioactive, and its rays could pass through everything, like stone, metal, iron, etc. She named it  Radium, and it was a big blast in the world of science. People asked for proof about Radium. They bought a wrecked place with a roof. There, they melted eight-ton iron for four years, out of which they got radium equal to a grain of pea. They bore all the asperities of winters and summers on their bodies. The poisonous smoke made holes in her lungs, but she didn't give up.

A vintage image of Marie Curie working with test tubes and radioactive materials during her research

Radium brought the message of life to millions of patients with cancer. It is known today as the therapy of rays. This is in fact the invention of Marie. This was Marie who melted iron for four years to assure the life of cancer patients. She was the only woman in the world who was awarded Noble Price twice in her life. Thirty films have been produced about her life while hundreds of books have been written about her.

Thus, she was a great woman. She devoted her life to serving humanity. Such people can never be forgotten. The world remembers them forever.

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