Marie Curie and the power of Curiosity

MARYA SKLODOWSKA was born in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, about 120 years ago. In future years the whole world would come to know her as the greatest scientist Marie Curie.

At school Marya was always the smartest student in her class. She liked especially to read. She read adventure stories, poems, history books, and science books. She was curious about everything. It seemed she never forgot  anything. Her mind was like a sponge for facts.

Her father was a teacher of mathematics and physics and had many books about science. He let Marya read as many of the books she wanted. She also liked to look at the delicate pieces of scientific equipment he kept in a large glass case in his study. She thought they were beautiful.

When Marya was 15 years old, she graduated from high school with very high marks was given a beautiful gold medal prize. Though her father was a respected teacher, the family was not rich. Marya had to find a job to get money for college.

She went to work as a governess, teaching and caring for the children of a wealthy family. But she still found time to read and study and to teach the children of poor families who lived nearby.

The years went by. Finally Marya was able to enter a great university, the Sorbonne, in Paris, France. When she registered for  classes, she changed the spelling of her first name from the Polish Marya  to the French Marie.

Though Marie was curious about everything, she soon found that science, especially chemistry, was her favorite subject. While she was still a student she met a brilliant young scientist named Pierre Curie. The two fell in love; when they were married she became Marie Curie.

A year later a new discovery attracted Marie Curie’s curiosity. A French scientist, Henri Becquerel, discovered that the element uranium gave off mysterious, invisible rays of energy. Marie wanted to know if anything else also gave off these rays.

She began to experiment. After making tests on many different substances, she began  to study pitchblende, a mineral that contains uranium  and thorium. Marie discovered  that thorium also gives off the rays.

After removing the small amount of uranium and thorium from the pitchblende, Marie was surprised and puzzled  to find  that the mineral remaining still gave off the mysterious rays.

What could cause such a thing? Marie wondered. At last she decided  that the pitchblende must contain an even more active element-a new element!

Now Pierre Curie joined his wife in  the search for the mystery element. Marie worked on separating the element from the pitchblende, while Pierre worked on studying the element itself and the rays it gave off  .

Finally the Curies had collected a small sample of the pure element, which Marie called polonium, after her  country Poland. She also gave a name to describe the release of the invisible rays of energy. She called the energy radioactivity.

But the Curies were amazed to find that the pitchblende contained yet another element-one that was more radioactive.

Marie’s curiosity drove her on. She wanted to collect a sample of the pure element, which she and Pierre named radium. It took four years, but from several tons of one, Marie was able to get a tiny sample of the new element.

The Curies and Henri Becquerel in 1903 were given the Nobel Prize for their work on radioactivity. In 1911 Marie Curie was given the Nobel Prize for  her discovery of radium.

   Marie Curie’s  curiosity had helped her to discover two new elements. Her curiosity about what radioactivity is brought about a new understanding of how atoms, the tiny building blocks of the universe, are put together. She was truly one of the world’s great scientists.