Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, famous for their discovery of radioactivity

Maria Skłodowska-Curie was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. At the Sorbonne Marie Curie met and married Pierre Curie, a fellow-instructor. Together they isolated two new radioactive elements.

They named the first element "polonium," after Skłodowska-Curie's native country, Poland, and the other was named "radium," for its intense radioactivity. In 1903 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."

Eight years later she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element".

During the first World War she proposed to use of mobile radiography units for the treatment of wounded soldiers. These units were the tubes of radium emanation, a colorless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as radon. Also, promptly after the war started, she donated her and her husband's gold Nobel Prize medals for the war.

In her later years, she was disappointed by many physicians and makers of cosmetics who used radioactive material without precautions.

Her death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly due to exposure to radiation, as the damaging effects of hard radiation were not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out with no safety measures being taken. She carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer.

Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She was awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields.

The contribution of Marie Curie into science is great. We know that atomic energy stations give the biggest part of generation energy, and the properties of radioactivity are used in modern medicine, for the treatment of cancer.

The elder daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie Irene with her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935.They synthesized new artificial radioactive material.It is an unusual phenomena for four members of one family to win Nobel Prize in science. The family to whom these honors came was that of the Curies, four individuals whose lives and work form a significant part of the history of nuclear physics in the 20th century.

Klochkova S.