INSTRUCTION: Read the text and answer to the question.
Marie & Pierre Curie
Pierre & Marie Curie were both extraordinary scientists.
They married in 1895 and were awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1903 for their joint research on radiation.
Read on for interesting facts, quotes and information
about Marie & Pierre Curie.
Pierre Curie
• Pierre Curie was a French physicist who made
many breakthrough discoveries in radioactivity,
crystallography and magnetism.
• Some of his contributions to science include:
The Curie Point – a temperature level where
ferromagnetic substances lost their ferromagnetic
behavior, Curie’s Law – the effect of temperature
on paramagnetism, demonstrating the electric
potential of crystals when compressed,
designing an extremely accurate torsion balance
for measuring magnetic coefficients and his
combined work on radiation, isolating polonium
and radium with his wife Marie Curie.
Marie Curie
• Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist famous
for becoming the first person to be awarded two
Nobel Prizes. She was brought up in Poland
before eventually moving to France and obtaining
French citizenship.
• After French physicist Henri Becquerel first
discovered a strange source of energy coming
from uranium (radioactivity), Marie Curie
decided that this would make a good field for
research. With the help of her husband and his
vital electrometer, she made numerous scientific
discoveries including showing that radiation did
indeed come from the atom itself rather than an
interaction between molecules.
• In 1911 Marie Curie was awarded another Nobel
Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her discovery of
radium and polonium and subsequent research.
• In 1932 Marie Curie founded the ‘Radium Institute’
in Warsaw, Poland. The name was changed after
World War II to the ‘Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Institute of Oncology’. The institute carries out
specialized cancer research and treatment.
• Famous Marie Curie quotes include: “We must
not forget that when radium was discovered no
one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals.
The work was one of pure science. And this is a
proof that scientific work must not be considered
from the point of view of the direct usefulness
of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of
science, and then there is always the chance
that a scientific discovery may become, like the
radium, a benefit for humanity.”
Available at: <http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/ scientists/mariepierrecurie.html>.
Accessed on: Dec 7th, 2017.