Free Marie Curie Essay Example

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The most inspirational scientist of all times for me is Marie Curie. Winner of two Nobel Prizes and famous for her work on radioactivity, Curie is a remarkable personality, without which science would never have progressed as it has. Also known as Marie Sklodowska, Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. She was the youngest amongst five brothers and sisters. Both her parents were teachers by occupation. Marie inherited her love for science after her father who was a physics and math teacher. She was naturally an excellent student who shone in academics. However for higher education she studied in a ‘floating university’ which was more of an underground way of education since she could not attend a men’s only university. In 1891, Curie went to Paris to pursue a degree in Physics which took a toll on her since she had to suffer financially, and it was a drain on her health. After completing her degree in 1893, Curie got another degree in mathematics the year after.
Accomplished as she was in academics, she soon got commissioned to work on various types of steel and investigated on their metallic properties. This was when she was provided with a lab to work in, by her future husband, Pierre Curie. The couple had a successful life, with two daughters who followed in their parents’ footsteps. What had influenced Marie in her discoveries was the work of Henri Becquerel, who made the discovery of cast off rays that were less powerful than X-rays which were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen? Curie took off with his work, working with the element uranium and worked on its atomic structure. This set off a turning point in atomic physics, and Curie invented the term ‘radioactivity’ to explain the occurrence. Her husband worked with her and one day she discovered a new radioactive element in the mineral pitchblende in 1898 that was named polonium after Marie’s mother country, Poland.

She discovered another element later on that was named radium.

The major outcome of her discoveries was the honor and success that lay ahead of her journey. In 1903, Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, and she became the first woman ever to receive a Nobel Prize. In 1906, she was struck by grief with her husband’s sudden death. However, she gathered herself and took over his lectures at Sorbonne, becoming the University’s first female teacher. In 1911, she won another Nobel Prize for Chemistry, owing to her discoveries of polonium and radium. She attended the first Solvay Congress in Physics along with famous scientists like Einstein and Max Planck where important scientific discoveries were talked about. She travelled to the States, raising funds to build a uranium research centre in Warsaw. However, her health suffered on account of her tremendous hard work and her dealing with radioactive elements. She went to a sanatorium in Passy, France where she passed away on July 4, 1934 due to aplastic amnesia that was caused by extremely radioactive exposure.
Curie’s achievements are a benchmark in the field of science, where discoveries in physics and chemistry accelerated the rate at which science progressed. All other discoveries were built upon Curie’s own discovery of radioactivity, and she is also a pioneer of the invention of X-rays. Her work is exemplary of the society as she was a woman who studied in spite of the odds, then won two Nobel prizes and taught in a university. She raised funds for the cause of science and made research institutes based on that revenue and the money she got from winning the Nobel Prize. She is my inspiration because she was the epitome of hard work, struggle and dedication, and she proved her love for science. If one would read about her history, they would definitely be encouraged to research and work in the field of science, because Curie was a person who researched endlessly without looking for absolute success, but only did it because she loved science. She thought ahead of her time, and her inventions are one of the most important ones in the present day.

References

Biography. (2015). Marie Curie. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/marie-curie-
9263538#final-days-and-legacy
Nobel Prize. (2015) Laureates. Marie Curie Facts. Retrieved from
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-facts.html
Pasachoff, Naomi. (1996). History. Curie. Retrieved from
http://www.aip.org/history/curie/contents.htm