The life of very few scientists are as inspiring as the life of Marie Curie. It was so full of tragedies and triumphs that it reads like a drama.
Marja (her original name in Polish) wasborn in Warsaw, in Poland, as the daughter of a Physicist. Her mother died of tuberculosis while she was still a child. Her eldest sister also died soon after. The poverty of her family made those childhood sorrows even more difficult to bear. But Marja grewup as an intelligent girl. She went to workas a governess - one who resides with a family and educates their children - to earnher living.
The poverty, and her duties as a governess did not prevent her from the pursuit oflearning. At this time, she writes, ‘she was learning Chemistry from a book!’.It took several years full of setbacks, hard work, and utmost economy in living beforeshe was able to go to France and join the famous Sorbonne University in Paris. Marja (now Marie) met Pierre Curie in 1894. He was already a Physicistof note. They fell in love and conducted their love affair in an atmosphere of laboratories andserious studies. They married,Marie not having even a proper wedding dress or the money to get one.
A friend wished to give her a bridal dress, and Marie wrote toher, “I have no dress except the one I wear everyday. If you aregiving me one, please let it be practical and dark, so that I canput it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”
Marie was attracted by the Uranium researches of Becquerel, another noted scientist. So she and her husband started on the long and hard path of research.They knew two unknown elements, which were later named as radium and polonium(after Marie’s country). But the community of scientists did not accept that they existed. So the Curies wanted to isolate these elements and prove that they did exist.
So, for five long years, from 1898 to 1902, they worked from morning till late into night. Their laboratory was a dilapidatedshed which leaked, and which was freezing cold in winter. It was a hard time for Marie and Pierre. They couldn’t really afford the research, as they already had children to bring up. They had very little money, and no help came either from the government or other agencies. Besides, very often the research might have seemed endless. At last they isolated radium. Marie had lostfifteen pounds of her body weight in those excruciating years, before success came. With the discovery of radium their lifechanged suddenly. Now fame was theirs.And fortune - the possibility of getting fab ulously rich - knocked at their door. But they gave the radium extraction processthey had discovered freely to the world,when they could have patented it (keep therights to themselves) and earned millions.Pierre at heart might have felt that life hadpassed them by. One evening as they wereabout to leave for a banquet he looked at his wife as if he were seeing her for thefirst time. “You look ever so charming,” hemurmured. Then he added with a sigh, “But there it is, we haven’t got time.”The words proved to be a prophesy for hedied in a road accident, struck by a van,soon after.
Now Marie turned a pathetic, lonely woman. But she threw herself into research again. She had always been high-spiritedand won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in1911.
She worked almost to the day of her death,though nearly blind, and her hands andarms scarred, pitted and burned by years of radiation. Thus passed away one of themost inspiring and beautiful of lives ever lived.
Marja (her original name in Polish) wasborn in Warsaw, in Poland, as the daughter of a Physicist. Her mother died of tuberculosis while she was still a child. Her eldest sister also died soon after. The poverty of her family made those childhood sorrows even more difficult to bear. But Marja grewup as an intelligent girl. She went to workas a governess - one who resides with a family and educates their children - to earnher living.
A friend wished to give her a bridal dress, and Marie wrote toher, “I have no dress except the one I wear everyday. If you aregiving me one, please let it be practical and dark, so that I canput it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”
Marie was attracted by the Uranium researches of Becquerel, another noted scientist. So she and her husband started on the long and hard path of research.They knew two unknown elements, which were later named as radium and polonium(after Marie’s country). But the community of scientists did not accept that they existed. So the Curies wanted to isolate these elements and prove that they did exist.
So, for five long years, from 1898 to 1902, they worked from morning till late into night. Their laboratory was a dilapidatedshed which leaked, and which was freezing cold in winter. It was a hard time for Marie and Pierre. They couldn’t really afford the research, as they already had children to bring up. They had very little money, and no help came either from the government or other agencies. Besides, very often the research might have seemed endless. At last they isolated radium. Marie had lostfifteen pounds of her body weight in those excruciating years, before success came. With the discovery of radium their lifechanged suddenly. Now fame was theirs.And fortune - the possibility of getting fab ulously rich - knocked at their door. But they gave the radium extraction processthey had discovered freely to the world,when they could have patented it (keep therights to themselves) and earned millions.Pierre at heart might have felt that life hadpassed them by. One evening as they wereabout to leave for a banquet he looked at his wife as if he were seeing her for thefirst time. “You look ever so charming,” hemurmured. Then he added with a sigh, “But there it is, we haven’t got time.”The words proved to be a prophesy for hedied in a road accident, struck by a van,soon after.
Now Marie turned a pathetic, lonely woman. But she threw herself into research again. She had always been high-spiritedand won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in1911.
She worked almost to the day of her death,though nearly blind, and her hands andarms scarred, pitted and burned by years of radiation. Thus passed away one of themost inspiring and beautiful of lives ever lived.
