Rising up in Poland, NIST researcher Justyna Zwolak was impressed by the legacy of Nobel Prize-winner Maria Skłodowska-Curie (generally often called Marie Curie).
Credit score:
M. King/NIST
I beforehand wrote a weblog publish about Ada Lovelace, typically celebrated as “the world’s first laptop programmer.” Whereas I genuinely loved crafting that piece, I wanted for the chance to write down a few scientist who is way nearer to my coronary heart: Maria Skłodowska-Curie. She has all the time been and stays a private position mannequin.
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (generally often called Marie Curie) revolutionized our understanding of the atomic world. Her work had profound, long-lasting results on medication, know-how and the course of human historical past.
Rising up and going to highschool in Poland, I discovered about Curie early on in an elementary faculty science course. I additionally keep in mind seeing her photos in each physics and chemistry classroom.
A rare scientist, spouse and mom, Curie paved a path into science for generations of girls who got here after her. Over time, I’ve come to acknowledge many parallels between our lives.
Like her, I used to be born in Poland throughout a interval of Russian management. Though Communism formally resulted in 1989, its results lingered for years afterward. From a younger age, I developed a love for arithmetic, which led me to pursue it via faculty. I initially educated to turn into a math and laptop science trainer. Throughout my research, I spotted how nice my ardour for studying and discovery actually is. So after incomes my arithmetic diploma, I shifted my focus towards pursuing a Ph.D. in physics.
Rising up in a rustic the place the primary scientist to win a Nobel Prize was a lady might have made it slightly simpler to pursue science. All through my training, I by no means heard anybody say, “Ladies can’t do math” or “Ladies can’t do science.”
Figuring out how a lot Maria Skłodowska-Curie achieved turned a driving power in my training and profession. It instilled a robust “I can do it” angle in me that I’ve carried with me all through my diversified profession. I pivoted from theoretical quantum info in graduate faculty to science training and, later, to AI for quantum applied sciences.
The latter turned out to be a fantastic profession swap and led me to NIST. At present, my analysis integrates AI and laptop imaginative and prescient with arithmetic and physics to advance quantum applied sciences. A quantum laptop takes benefit of physics’ counterintuitive processes. When totally developed, quantum computer systems could possibly do complicated duties that present computer systems wrestle to do, similar to designing medication or simulating complicated molecules.
Like Maria, I’m married to a scientist who shares my ardour for analysis and discovery and who has all the time inspired and supported me in pursuing my profession. As theorists, we by no means had an opportunity to share a lab house just like the Curies did, however we do have a whiteboard in our home the place we used to debate our work. We even co-authored a paper collectively!
Like Maria and Pierre, we’re scientists and dealing dad and mom of two superb, curious youngsters. Regardless of our busy schedules, we work onerous to ensure we all the time have time to show them in regards to the world round us — from studying collectively to exploring outside to performing mini-experiments in our home and in our daughter’s faculty. We attempt to present them how enjoyable studying and science are and ignite their curiosity. I hope that what we do collectively will encourage them to do nice issues sooner or later.
Early Life and Training: Rising Up in Russian-Occupied Poland
Maria Skłodowska was born on Nov. 7, 1867, the fifth and youngest daughter of Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowscy. Russian occupation — and the ensuing suppression of Polish tradition and language — had a profound influence on her formative years.
Skłodowska’s father was a math and physics trainer, in addition to a principal. As a consequence of his pro-Polish sentiments and outspoken views in opposition to Russian oppression, Russian authorities demoted and compelled him right into a collection of progressively decrease educational posts.
Despite the fact that the household’s monetary state of affairs deteriorated, her father was deeply devoted to training and his youngsters’s mental pursuits. On Saturday evenings, he learn literary classics to them. He introduced house scientific equipment when Russian authorities eradicated laboratory instruction from the Polish curriculum. This enormously influenced Maria’s youth.
Training was a cornerstone in her household. Despite the fact that alternatives for ladies in occupied Poland have been severely restricted on the time, Maria excelled in class and hoped to get a complicated diploma. Unable to enroll on the College of Warsaw, Maria and her sister attended an illegal night school. Its college students’ lofty purpose went past mere self-improvement. They hoped their grassroots academic motion would increase the probability of eventual Polish liberation.
In 1891, on the age of 24, she moved to Paris to review on the Sorbonne, one of many few locations the place ladies might pursue a level in science.
Life in Paris: Assembly Pierre Curie and Breakthroughs in Radioactivity
In Paris, Skłodowska encountered each alternative and hardship. Whereas learning physics and arithmetic on the Sorbonne, she lived in close to poverty, typically sustaining herself on bread and tea.
Nonetheless, she graduated on the prime of her class with a master’s degree in physics in 1893. A 12 months later, Skłodowska obtained a second diploma in arithmetic. In 1894, she met Pierre Curie, a professor who would turn into her husband and closest scientific collaborator.
“Quickly he caught the behavior of talking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated completely to scientific analysis, and he requested me to share that life. It was not, nevertheless, simple for me to make such a choice, for it meant separation from my nation and my household, and the renouncement of sure social tasks that have been pricey to me,” she wrote in a e-book about her husband’s life.
In 1895, she married Pierre. As a substitute of a bridal robe, Maria selected to put on a darkish blue costume that she discovered “sensible” and will later put on to her laboratory, as described in her daughter Eve Curie Labouisse’s e-book Madame Curie: A Biography.
After marriage, she turned often called Marie Skłodowska-Curie; Marie is the French spelling of her title. Two years later, in 1897, their first daughter, Irene, was born.
Credit score:
Library of Congress/New-York Tribune
In 1896, impressed by Henri Becquerel’s discovery of spontaneous radiation from uranium, Marie started investigating the mysterious emissions from sure parts, calling it “radioactivity.”
She hypothesized that the radiation was not a results of chemical reactions however a property intrinsic to the atoms of sure supplies. This led to the invention of two new parts in 1898: polonium, which Marie named after her native Poland, and radium.
These discoveries laid the groundwork for a brand new understanding of atomic construction, establishing the sphere of atomic physics.
In 1903, the Curies shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Becquerel for his or her joint analysis on radioactivity. Marie turned the primary girl ever to win a Nobel Prize, breaking obstacles in a male-dominated subject. Earlier that 12 months, she obtained her doctorate diploma in physics from the College of Paris for her work investigating radioactive bodies — the primary girl in historical past to obtain a Ph.D. in science in France.
Successful the Nobel Prize modified the Curies’ lives. The prize cash allowed them to rent a paid lab assistant. In recognition of his scientific achievement, Pierre was appointed to a professorship on the College of Paris. Marie, for the primary time in her profession, obtained an official title — chief of laboratory — and a college wage. In 1904, their second daughter, Eve, was born. Not lengthy after giving delivery, Marie returned to the lab and her analysis. Within the meantime, Pierre’s well being started to deteriorate.
On a wet midafternoon in April 1906, Pierre was run down by a heavy carriage, dying immediately. Regardless of Pierre’s tragic demise, Marie continued her analysis with even higher resolve.
She succeeded him as a professor on the College of Paris, turning into the primary girl to carry that place. In 1911, she was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry (and solo), for her discovery of radium and polonium. Marie was the primary and, thus far, the one particular person to ever win two Nobel Prizes in several scientific fields.
Dying and Legacy
Curie’s work went past pure scientific analysis. She was additionally instrumental in making use of her discoveries for medical functions.
Throughout World Conflict I, she acknowledged the potential of X-rays in treating wounded troopers. She championed the usage of cellular radiography items — often called “Little Curies” — that may very well be transported to battlefields to assist medical doctors find bullets and shrapnel in troopers’ our bodies.
She personally oversaw the coaching of radiologists and was actively concerned within the deployment of those items, straight saving numerous lives throughout the battle. After the battle, she continued her analysis into the medical functions of radioactivity, establishing the Radium Institute in Paris in 1914. It turned a number one heart for scientific analysis.
Her achievements got here at nice private value. The hazards of working with radioactive supplies weren’t properly understood on the time. Curie typically dealt with extremely radioactive substances with out correct safety. The long-term publicity ultimately took a toll on her well being. She developed aplastic anemia, a situation that will result in her death in 1934.
Even after her demise, Curie’s affect on science continued via her household. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, adopted in her footsteps, profitable the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935 alongside her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for his or her work on synthetic radioactivity. This outstanding mother-daughter achievement stays distinctive in Nobel historical past.
Marie Curie’s life was outlined by relentless resolve, mental brilliance and a dedication to advancing science. Her discoveries not solely remodeled our understanding of atomic physics and radioactivity but additionally paved the best way for developments in medication, notably in most cancers therapy.
At present, she stays an everlasting image of scientific achievement, resilience and the pursuit of information in opposition to all odds. Her life, her ardour for science and her capability to stability motherhood and a scientific profession have all the time impressed me.
