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O n t h e T r a c k o f M o d e r n P h y s i c s
The Uranium ore, pitchblende, is a very complex mineral, made of combinations of up to 30 different elements. After grinding, dissolving, filtering, precipitating, collecting, re-dissolving, crystallising, re-crystallising 8 tonnes of pitchblende one can obtain 1 g of pure radium chloride.
Marie worked-out 1.5 tonne of pitchblende. The relative atomic mass of radium Maria determined as 223.
Be careful: Her books are still radioactive to this very day.
Copyright © Lou Perloff / Photo Atlas of Minerals
Sklodowskite (H3O)2Mg(UO2)2(SiO4)2·4(H2O)
Hydrated Magnesium Uranyl Silicate Radioactivity greater than 70 Bq/gram
Eighteen small trucks called little Curies, fitted out with radiological equipment, were produced during the 1st WW. Marie and her 17-years-old-daughter Irene as a volunteers regularly went to the front.
Little CurieBIG Curie,
small Becquerel
The Radium Standards Committee decided that the unit of radioactivity, curie – chosen to honour Pierre - should be the amount of radon in equilibrium with 10-8 grams of radium. Marie did not accepted the proposal: she felt that the use of the name curie for so infinitesimally small a quantity of anything was altogether inappropriate. She insisted that the unit be based on one gram of radium. It was then a "legendary" amount.
1 curie = 37000000000 becquerel
Beautiful Sklodowskite
Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted.
Albert Einstein
In 1903 Marie and Pierre lost a child, born prematurely.
In 1906 Pierre was killed in a traffic accident. Marie refused an offer from the
French Government for a pension. She claimed that she was young and strong
enough to maintain herself and the children (nine-years-old Irène and 2-years-old
Eve).
Irène and her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, discovered artificial radioactivity and
received the 1935 Nobel Prize for their discovery.
The younger daughter, married the American diplomat H. R. Labouisse. They have
both taken lively interest in social problems, and as Director of the United Nations'
Children's Fund he received on its behalf the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1965.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
www.aip.org/.../images/ resbr2-pitchblende.jpg
http://www.lispme.de/pse/88_Ra_en.html
http://www.curie.fr/img/fondation/contextuel/fiche-radioactive_b.jpg
in age of 10 lost mother
in age of 15 finished the secondary school (with a golden medal)
to age of 24 worked as a private teacher
26 - got a Bachelor in Physics
27 - got a Bachelor in Mathematics
28 - got married, for the money received from a cousin they bought bicycles and rode for a wedding trip
between 28 and 30 – got a research fellowship
30 - she got born a daughter and began PhD studies: built a set-up to measure very weak electrical currents, her father-in-law takes care about her daughter
The examination committee expressed the opinion that the findings represented the greatest scientific contribution ever made in a doctoral thesis. Of the three members of the committee, two were to receive the Nobel Prize a few years later.
In 1903 with her husband was awarded
with a Nobel prize in physics for:
"a great contribution by common work to understanding
phenomena discovered by Henry Becquerel"
(who got it for "discovering spontaneous radioactivity").
In 1911 she was awarded with a Nobel prize in chemistry for:
"a contribution in the field of chemistry by discovering
chemical elements - polonium and radium,
isolating ot them and the studies of chemical
compounds of these extraordinary elements"
Well known picture - in every physics textbook is from her PhD thesis.
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