Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series)

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Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) for boys. After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home and instructed his children in its use. [15] He was eventually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on a bad investment and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house. [15] Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls; she resigned from the position after Maria was born. [15] She died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria was ten years old. [15] Less than three years earlier, Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder. [15] Maria's father was an atheist, her mother a devout Catholic. [20] The deaths of Maria's mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic. [21] Maria (left) and sister Bronisława, c. 1886 a b Quinn, Susan (1996). Marie Curie: A Life. Da Capo Press. pp.176, 203. ISBN 978-0-201-88794-5. Archived from the original on 31 October 2015 . Retrieved 7 September 2015. a b c d e f g h i j k "Marie Curie – Research Breakthroughs (1807–1904)Part 2". American Institute of Physics. Archived from the original on 18 November 2011 . Retrieved 7 November 2011.

Marie and Pierre Curie‘s pioneering research was again brought to mind when on April 20 1995, their bodies were taken from their place of burial at Sceaux, just outside Paris, and in a solemn ceremony were laid to rest under the mighty dome of the Panthéon. Marie Curie thus became the first woman to be accorded this mark of honour on her own merit. One woman, Sophie Berthelot, admittedly already rested there but in the capacity of wife of the chemist Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907). They discovered a new element that gave off rays of heat and light - they called this radium. They studied the light and heat it gave off and called this radioactivity. Robert William Reid (1974). Marie Curie. New American Library. pp.63–64. ISBN 978-0-00-211539-1. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016 . Retrieved 15 March 2016. Marie Skłodowska Curie was escorted to the United States by the American author and social activist Charlotte Hoffman Kellogg. [64] Marie worked hard to find a cure for cancer - nobody knew that working with radium was dangerous. But it was and because of this Marie became very ill and died.

Epilogue

Healing children’s grief: surviving a parent’s death from cancer by Grace H Christ (2000) (Oxford University Inc) In 1915, Curie produced hollow needles containing "radium emanation", a colourless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as radon, to be used for sterilizing infected tissue. She provided the radium from her own one-gram supply. [61] It is estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units. [21] [50] Busy with this work, she carried out very little scientific research during that period. [50] In spite of all her humanitarian contributions to the French war effort, Curie never received any formal recognition of it from the French government. [57] In late 1891, she left Poland for France. [25] In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she would be known in France) briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a garret closer to the university, in the Latin Quarter, and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris, where she enrolled in late 1891. [26] [27] She subsisted on her meagre resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the clothes she had. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. [27] Skłodowska studied during the day and tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. In 1893, she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued studying at the University of Paris and with the aid of a fellowship she was able to earn a second degree in 1894. [14] [27] [b]

Much has changed in the conditions under which researchers work since Marie and Pierre Curie worked in a drafty shed and refused to consider taking out a patent as being incompatible with their view of the role of researchers; a patent would nevertheless have facilitated their research and spared their health. But in one respect, the situation remains unchanged. Nature holds on just as hard to its really profound secrets, and it is just as difficult to predict where the answers to fundamental questions are to be found. Never too young to know: death in children’s lives by Phyllis Silverman (1999) (Oxford University, Press Inc) A picture book to help bereaved children grieve when someone close to them dies. Written by a parent living with a terminal illness, this book also comes with guidance on supporting grieving children from Child Bereavement UK.When dinosaurs die: a guide to understanding death(1996) by Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown (Little, Brown books for young readers) Marie’s next idea, seemingly simple but brilliant, was to study the natural ores that contain uranium and thorium. She obtained samples from geological museums and found that of these ores, pitchblende was four to five times more active than was motivated by the amount of uranium. It was her hypothesis that a new element that was considerably more active than uranium was present in small amounts in the ore. Marie and Pierre – a fruitful collaboration