Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), better known as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French<!--Note: Per 1 November 2013 talk-page Request for Comment consensus, please do not change the nationality description without consulting the discussion page. This formulation ("Polish and naturalized-French") has been found to be the best way to reflect Curie's connections to both of these countries.--> physicist and chemist. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie "for their joint researches on the radioactivity phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "[for] the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element".

She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields. Marie and Pierre were the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. In 1906, Pierre died in a Paris street accident.

Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1920, and the Curie Institute in Warsaw in 1932; both remain major medical research centres. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.

While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames, never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. In addition to her Nobel Prizes, she received numerous other honours and tributes; in 1995 she became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Paris ,

On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–1865). who became a leading figure in Polish literature.

thumb|left|upright=0.8|Maria (left) and sister [[Bronisława Dłuska|Bronisława, ]]

When she was ten years old, Maria began attending J. Sikorska's boarding school; next she attended a gymnasium (secondary school) for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal. Marie herself wished to study in Paris, but delayed her studies in order to financially aid her sister. While working for the latter family, she fell in love with their son, Kazimierz Żorawski, a future eminent mathematician. neither wanted a religious service. which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires (Russia, Austria, and Prussia). In the course of their research, they also coined the word 'radioactivity'.

In 1900, Curie became the first woman faculty member at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles and her husband joined the faculty of the University of Paris. "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."

She was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes, and remains alone with Linus Pauling as Nobel laureates in two fields each. A delegation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, encouraged her to return to Poland and continue her research in her native country. She visited Poland in 1913 and was welcomed in Warsaw but the visit was mostly ignored by the Russian authorities. The institute's development was interrupted by the First World War, as most researchers were drafted into the French Army; it fully resumed its activities after the war, in 1919. She saw a need for field radiological centres near the front lines to assist battlefield surgeons, After a quick study of radiology, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, and auxiliary generators, and she developed mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known as ("Little Curies").

In 1921 U.S. President Warren G. Harding received Curie at the White House to present her with the 1&nbsp;gram of radium collected in the United States. In 1923 she wrote a biography of her late husband, titled Pierre Curie. In 1931, Curie was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.

Death

thumb|upright=0.8|1935 statue, facing the Radium Institute, [[Warsaw]]

Curie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934.

The damaging effects of ionising radiation were not known at the time of her work, which had been carried out without the safety measures later developed.

She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre. She became the second woman to be interred at the Panthéon (after Sophie Berthelot) and the first woman to be honoured with interment in the Panthéon on her own merits. Even her cookbooks are highly radioactive.

She was known for her honesty and moderate lifestyle.

  • Elliott Cresson Medal (1909)
  • Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)
  • Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society (1921)

Entities that have been named after Marie Curie include:

  • The curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in honour of her and Pierre Curie (although the commission which agreed on the name never clearly stated whether the standard was named after Pierre, Marie, or both).
  • In 2007, a Paris Metro station (in Ivry) was renamed after the two Curies. A nearby road, Avenue Marie Curie, is also named in her honour.
  • The Polish research nuclear reactor Maria
  • The IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award, an international award presented for outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear and plasma sciences and engineering, was established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2008.
  • The Marie Curie Medal, an annual science award established in 1996 and conferred by the Polish Chemical Society
  • The Marie Curie–Sklodowska Medal and Prize, an annual award conferred by the London-based Institute of Physics for distinguished contributions to physics education
  • Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland
  • Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris
  • Maria Skłodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Poland
  • École élémentaire Marie-Curie in London, Ontario, Canada; Curie Metropolitan High School in Chicago, United States; Marie Curie High School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Lycée français Marie Curie de Zurich, Switzerland; see Lycée Marie Curie for a list of other schools named after her.
  • Rue Madame Curie in Beirut, Lebanon
  • Beetle species – Psammodes sklodowskae Kamiński & Gearner

Numerous biographies are devoted to her, including:

  • Ève Curie (Marie Curie's daughter), Madame Curie, 1938.
  • Françoise Giroud, Marie Curie: A Life, 1987.
  • Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, 1996.
  • Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, 2005.

Marie Curie has been the subject of a number of films:

  • 1943: Madame Curie, a U.S. Oscar-nominated film by Mervyn LeRoy starring Greer Garson. Curie has also been portrayed by Susan Marie Frontczak in her play, Manya: The Living History of Marie Curie, a one-woman show which by 2014 had been performed in 30 U.S. states and nine countries. Lauren Gunderson's 2019 play The Half-Life of Marie Curie portrays Curie during the summer after her 1911 Nobel Prize victory, when she was grappling with depression and facing public scorn over the revelation of her affair with Paul Langevin.

The life of the scientist was also the subject of a 2018 Korean musical, titled Marie Curie. The show was since translated in English (as Marie Curie a New Musical) and has been performed several times across Asia and Europe, receiving its official Off West End premiere in London's Charing Cross Theatre in summer 2024.

Curie has appeared on more than 600 postage stamps in many countries across the world.

Between 1989 and 1996, she was depicted on a 20,000-złoty banknote designed by Andrzej Heidrich. In 2011, a commemorative 20-złoty banknote depicting Curie was issued by the National Bank of Poland on the 100th anniversary of the scientist receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In 1994, the Bank of France issued a 500-franc banknote depicting Marie and Pierre Curie. Since 2024, Curie has been depicted on French 50 euro cent coins to commemorate her importance in French history.

On November 7, 2011, Curie was celebrated in a Google Doodle.

In 2025, the European Central Bank announced that Curie had been selected to appear on the obverse of twenty euro banknotes in a future redesign, were the theme "European culture" to be selected over "Rivers and birds".

Marie Curie was immortalized in at least one color Autochrome Lumière photograph during her lifetime. It was saved in Musée Curie in Paris.

In 2026, Curie was announced as one of 72 historical women in STEM whose names have been proposed to be added to the 72 men already celebrated on the Eiffel Tower. The plan was announced by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo following the recommendations of a committee led by Isabelle Vauglin of ' and Jean-François Martins, representing the operating company which runs the Eiffel Tower.

See also

  • Charlotte Hoffman Kellogg, who sponsored Marie Curie's visit to the US
  • Eusapia Palladino: Spiritualist medium whose Paris séances were attended by an intrigued Pierre Curie and a sceptical Marie Curie
  • List of female Nobel laureates
  • List of female nominees for the Nobel Prize
  • List of Poles in Chemistry
  • List of Poles in Physics
  • List of Polish Nobel laureates
  • Skłodowski family
  • Timeline of women in science
  • Treatise on Radioactivity, by Marie Curie
  • Women in chemistry
  • Women in physics

Notes

References

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Bibliography

  • Wojciech A. Wierzewski, "Mazowieckie korzenie Marii" ("Maria's Mazowsze Roots"), Gwiazda Polarna (Pole Star), a Polish-American biweekly, vol. 100, no. 13 (21 June 2008), pp.&nbsp;16–17.
  • L. Pearce Williams, "Curie, Pierre and Marie", Encyclopedia Americana, Danbury, Connecticut, Grolier, Inc., 1986, vol. 8, pp.&nbsp;331–332.

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Further reading

Nonfiction

  • Sobel, Dava (2024). The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. . .

Fiction

  • A 2004 novel by Per Olov Enquist featuring Maria Skłodowska-Curie, neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, and his Salpêtrière patient "Blanche" (Marie Wittman). The English translation was published in 2006.

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