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.
