Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2261

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE (1867-1934) Traité de radioactivité. Gauthier-Villars 1910 Vol. I: xiii, 426 pp., illus., front. (port.), 2 plates; Vol. II: 548 pp., illus., 5 plates. 25.4 cm.

Marie Sklodowska was the fifth and youngest child of a mathematics and physics teacher in Warsaw. She completed her basic education at the age of seventeen and for the next six years served in various posts as a governess. During this time she continued to read and study the scientific literature; she entered the Sorbonne in 1891 to study for a master's degree in physics (1893) and then in mathematics (1894). She was awarded a doctorate several years later for her notable work on the nature of radioactivity. It was while she was a student in Paris that she met and eventually married Pierre Curie (see No. 2223). In 1896 Henri Becquerel (see No. 2142) had suggested the radioactive properties of pitchblende. Inspired by this suggestion, Becquerel's pupil, Marie Curie, and her husband Pierre began the labors which led to their discovery of polonium and radium and to their sharing with Becquerel of the Nobel prize for physics in 1903. Marie was awarded the Nobel prize again for chemistry in 1911.

See Related Record(s): 2223 2142

Gift of John Martin, M.D.