Rising up in Poland, NIST researcher Justyna Zwolak was impressed by the legacy of Nobel Prize-winner Maria Skłodowska-Curie (generally often called Marie Curie).
Credit score: M. King/NIST
I beforehand wrote a weblog submit about Ada Lovelace, typically celebrated as “the world’s first pc programmer.” Whereas I genuinely loved crafting that piece, I needed for the chance to jot down a couple of scientist who is far nearer to my coronary heart: Maria Skłodowska-Curie. She has at all times been and stays a private function mannequin.
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (generally often called Marie Curie) revolutionized our understanding of the atomic world. Her work had profound, long-lasting results on medication, know-how and the course of human historical past.
Rising up and going to high school in Poland, I discovered about Curie early on in an elementary college science course. I additionally bear in mind seeing her photos in each physics and chemistry classroom.
A rare scientist, spouse and mom, Curie paved a path into science for generations of ladies who got here after her. Over time, I’ve come to acknowledge many parallels between our lives.
Like her, I used to be born in Poland throughout a interval of Russian management. Though Communism formally led to 1989, its results lingered for years afterward. From a younger age, I developed a love for arithmetic, which led me to pursue it by school. I initially skilled to develop into a math and pc science trainer. Throughout my research, I spotted how nice my ardour for studying and discovery actually is. So after incomes my arithmetic diploma, I shifted my focus towards pursuing a Ph.D. in physics.
Rising up in a rustic the place the primary scientist to win a Nobel Prize was a lady might have made it a bit simpler to pursue science. All through my training, I by no means heard anybody say, “Women can’t do math” or “Women can’t do science.”
Understanding how a lot Maria Skłodowska-Curie achieved grew to become a driving drive in my training and profession. It instilled a strong “I can do it” angle in me that I’ve carried with me all through my assorted profession. I pivoted from theoretical quantum data in graduate college to science training and, later, to AI for quantum applied sciences.
The latter turned out to be an incredible profession change and led me to NIST. Right now, my analysis integrates AI and pc imaginative and prescient with arithmetic and physics to advance quantum applied sciences. A quantum pc takes benefit of physics’ counterintuitive processes. When totally developed, quantum computer systems might be able to do complicated duties that present computer systems battle to do, similar to designing medicine or simulating complicated molecules.
Like Maria, I’m married to a scientist who shares my ardour for analysis and discovery and who has at all times inspired and supported me in pursuing my profession. As theorists, we by no means had an opportunity to share a lab house just like the Curies did, however we do have a whiteboard in our home the place we used to debate our work. We even co-authored a paper collectively!
Like Maria and Pierre, we’re scientists and dealing mother and father of two wonderful, curious youngsters. Regardless of our busy schedules, we work laborious to ensure we at all times have time to show them concerning the world round us — from studying collectively to exploring open air to performing mini-experiments in our home and in our daughter’s college. We attempt to present them how enjoyable studying and science are and ignite their curiosity. I hope that what we do collectively will encourage them to do nice issues sooner or later.
Early Life and Schooling: Rising Up in Russian-Occupied Poland
Maria Skłodowska was born on Nov. 7, 1867, the fifth and youngest daughter of Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowscy. Russian occupation — and the ensuing suppression of Polish tradition and language — had a profound affect on her formative years.
Skłodowska’s father was a math and physics trainer, in addition to a principal. On account of his pro-Polish sentiments and outspoken views towards Russian oppression, Russian authorities demoted and compelled him right into a collection of progressively decrease educational posts.
Though the household’s monetary state of affairs deteriorated, her father was deeply devoted to training and his youngsters’s mental pursuits. On Saturday evenings, he learn literary classics to them. He introduced dwelling scientific gear when Russian authorities eradicated laboratory instruction from the Polish curriculum. This drastically influenced Maria’s early life.
Schooling was a cornerstone in her household. Though alternatives for girls in occupied Poland had been severely restricted on the time, Maria excelled at school and hoped to get a complicated diploma. Unable to enroll on the College of Warsaw, Maria and her sister attended an unlawful night time college. Its college students’ lofty purpose went past mere self-improvement. They hoped their grassroots instructional motion would elevate the chance of eventual Polish liberation.
In 1891, on the age of 24, she moved to Paris to review on the Sorbonne, one of many few locations the place girls may pursue a level in science.
Life in Paris: Assembly Pierre Curie and Breakthroughs in Radioactivity
In Paris, Skłodowska encountered each alternative and hardship. Whereas finding out physics and arithmetic on the Sorbonne, she lived in close to poverty, typically sustaining herself on bread and tea.
Nonetheless, she graduated on the prime of her class with a grasp’s diploma in physics in 1893. A yr later, Skłodowska obtained a second diploma in arithmetic. In 1894, she met Pierre Curie, a professor who would develop into her husband and closest scientific collaborator.
“Quickly he caught the behavior of talking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated solely to scientific analysis, and he requested me to share that life. It was not, nonetheless, straightforward for me to make such a call, for it meant separation from my nation and my household, and the renouncement of sure social tasks that had been expensive to me,” she wrote in a e-book about her husband’s life.
In 1895, she married Pierre. As an alternative of a bridal robe, Maria selected to put on a darkish blue gown that she discovered “sensible” and will later put on to her laboratory, as described in her daughter Eve Curie Labouisse’s e-book Madame Curie: A Biography.
After marriage, she grew to become often called Marie Skłodowska-Curie; Marie is the French spelling of her identify. Two years later, in 1897, their first daughter, Irene, was born.
Credit score:
Library of Congress/New-York Tribune
In 1896, impressed by Henri Becquerel’s discovery of spontaneous radiation from uranium, Marie started investigating the mysterious emissions from sure parts, calling it “radioactivity.”
She hypothesized that the radiation was not a results of chemical reactions however a property intrinsic to the atoms of sure supplies. This led to the invention of two new parts in 1898: polonium, which Marie named after her native Poland, and radium.
These discoveries laid the groundwork for a brand new understanding of atomic construction, establishing the sphere of atomic physics.
In 1903, the Curies shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Becquerel for his or her joint analysis on radioactivity. Marie grew to become the primary girl ever to win a Nobel Prize, breaking boundaries in a male-dominated discipline. Earlier that yr, she acquired her doctorate diploma in physics from the College of Paris for her work investigating radioactive our bodies — the primary girl in historical past to obtain a Ph.D. in science in France.
Profitable the Nobel Prize modified the Curies’ lives. The prize cash allowed them to rent a paid lab assistant. In recognition of his scientific achievement, Pierre was appointed to a professorship on the College of Paris. Marie, for the primary time in her profession, acquired an official title — chief of laboratory — and a college wage. In 1904, their second daughter, Eve, was born. Not lengthy after giving delivery, Marie returned to the lab and her analysis. Within the meantime, Pierre’s well being started to deteriorate.
On a wet midafternoon in April 1906, Pierre was run down by a heavy carriage, dying immediately. Regardless of Pierre’s tragic demise, Marie continued her analysis with even higher resolve.
She succeeded him as a professor on the College of Paris, turning into the primary girl to carry that place. In 1911, she was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry (and solo), for her discovery of radium and polonium. Marie was the primary and, thus far, the one individual to ever win two Nobel Prizes in numerous scientific fields.
Demise and Legacy
Curie’s work went past pure scientific analysis. She was additionally instrumental in making use of her discoveries for medical functions.
Throughout World Battle I, she acknowledged the potential of X-rays in treating wounded troopers. She championed using cellular radiography models — often called “Little Curies” — that could possibly be transported to battlefields to assist docs find bullets and shrapnel in troopers’ our bodies.
She personally oversaw the coaching of radiologists and was actively concerned within the deployment of those models, straight saving numerous lives through the conflict. After the conflict, she continued her analysis into the medical purposes of radioactivity, establishing the Radium Institute in Paris in 1914. It grew to become a number one heart for scientific analysis.
Her achievements got here at nice private value. The risks of working with radioactive supplies weren’t effectively understood on the time. Curie typically dealt with extremely radioactive substances with out correct safety. The long-term publicity ultimately took a toll on her well being. She developed aplastic anemia, a situation that will result in her demise in 1934.
Even after her demise, Curie’s affect on science continued by her household. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, adopted in her footsteps, successful the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935 alongside her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for his or her work on synthetic radioactivity. This outstanding mother-daughter achievement stays distinctive in Nobel historical past.
Marie Curie’s life was outlined by relentless resolve, mental brilliance and a dedication to advancing science. Her discoveries not solely reworked our understanding of atomic physics and radioactivity but in addition paved the best way for developments in medication, significantly in most cancers therapy.
Right now, she stays a permanent image of scientific achievement, resilience and the pursuit of data towards all odds. Her life, her ardour for science and her means to stability motherhood and a scientific profession have at all times impressed me.
