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There are some famous couples who are simply picture perfect. Whether it’s Bogie and Bacall in To Have and To Hold or Elton John and David Furnish supporting AIDS awareness, these Curie celebrity couples turn up the shine every time they get photographed.
Many are familiar with Marie Curie as the first woman to win two Nobel Prizes and her pioneering work with radioactivity. This article will highlight another interesting aspect of her life: her marriage.
Physicists
When we think of famous scientific couples, the Curies usually come to mind. Marie Sklodowska Curie was a Polish research student when she met French physicist Pierre in 1894 and the two married a year later. They were both dedicated to their work. Their no-frills wedding was a reminder of their simple, straightforward approach to their research.
At first, the couple worked separately on different projects. Eventually they combined forces to study the magnetic properties of pitchblende, a mineral that contains radioactive elements. They devised new protocols for separating the pitchblende into its chemical components, including developing their own portable X-ray equipment. The Curies were among the first to discover two new radioactive substances, radium and polonium. They shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Antoine Henri Becquerel.
Marie’s constant exposure to radiation led to a series of serious health problems, including leukemia. Her daughter, Irene, was also exposed to the dangerous rays. Irene, herself a scientist, went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, sharing it with her husband Frederic Joliot in 1938.
The Library of Congress’s collection of photographs and manuscripts of the Curies is a valuable resource for students and researchers. Lauren Redniss, a Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers in 2008-09, drew on these resources to create Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout.
Nobel Prize Winners
Marie Curie was a woman of great energy and single-mindedness. She was also very intelligent and determined. She never gave up on her dreams, even in the darkest of times. She worked hard and saved up money to travel and learn more about science. She was an inspiration to many women and a role model for other scientists as well.
She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, for her discoveries of radium and polonium. Her work helped to save the lives of soldiers in World War I, by allowing doctors to detect and treat wounds. She was a pioneer in the field of radiology and she also had the ability to memorize large amounts of information quickly.
After winning the prize, she was able to set up her own research laboratory. She was also able to hire paid assistants for the first time. Although she often complained about the loss of privacy and having too much to do, she was happy that she had more opportunities for work.
Marie had a very interesting life and she was known as one of the most influential scientists of her time. She had no children and she was very proud of her achievements in the field of physics and radiology. She also wanted to make sure that her daughters would continue her work in the future.
Scientists
The Curies were the first married couple to win a Nobel Prize, and the only two women ever to do so. Their accomplishments have made them iconic. But their relationship has been less widely known. This infographic outlines some of the ways in which they were both inspired by each other and how they helped shape the world of science in the early 1900s.
Marie and Pierre worked together to develop the radioactive elements radium and polonium. The couple’s pioneering work on these substances earned them the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics, along with Henri Becquerel. The next year, the Curies shared a second Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of the elements.
Although he had once written that women were nothing but a distraction from scientific work, Pierre became entranced by Sklodowska and their shared interests in both research and humanitarian causes. He encouraged her to use the sensitive piezoelectric instrument that he’d invented, and he allowed her to spend time away from the lab to gather data for her doctoral dissertation.
In 1911, the pair was invited to attend the first Solvay Conference with other leading physicists, including Einstein and Henri Poincare. That same year, tragedy struck when Pierre was killed while crossing the street on Paris’ Rue Dauphine. Despite the loss of her husband, Marie continued with her work and even adapted their research to train doctors in field radiological techniques during World War I. She also raised a daughter, Irene, who went on to become an esteemed chemist and two-time Nobel winner herself with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie.
Marriage
Many know Marie and Pierre Curie as the first couple—and the only woman—to win two Nobel Prizes. Less well-known is the fact that they were also a highly productive scientific team, making groundbreaking discoveries about radioactivity and uranium in the late 1800s. Their relationship also serves as an example of how a marriage can be successful when both partners have a passion for science.
Marie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland (then called the Congress Kingdom of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russian Empire). Girls were not allowed to attend university at this time so she found work as a teacher and then as a governess. This allowed her to save money, which she used to help her sister Bronislawa study medicine in Paris, France.
It was there that she met the physicist Pierre Curie, who attracted her with his research on magnetism and encouraged her to write her own doctoral thesis on the curious rays emitted by some uranium compounds. In 1903, she won the Nobel Prize for physics, along with Henri Becquerel, for their discovery of radioactivity.
Despite her devastating loss in 1906 when her husband was knocked down by a horse-drawn carriage, she continued to dedicate herself to science and established the Radium Institute. For her efforts, she won a second Nobel Prize in 1911, this time for chemistry.
