The Curies and Radium

by Elizabeth Rubin

Pictures by Alan Moyler

Washington D.C.

Reading Level

The Flesch Kincaid Reading Level Analysis produced a grade level of 6.8 from samples of text.

Copyright

Published by Ebooks for Students, Ltd. January, 2019.

All rights reserved to this electronic version. 

© Ebooks for Students, Ltd., 2019.

Washington, D.C.

Please call (202) 464-9126 for purchases of school-wide and school district wide licenses.

COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS TO SUPPORT@EBOOKSFORSTUDENTS.ORG 

SEE OUR OTHER BIOGRAPHIES AND CLASS SET LICENSES AT THE END OF THE BOOK AND  

AT HTTPS://EBOOKSFORSTUDENTS.ORG/

1

Growing Up in Poland

When the Sklodowska’s new daughter was born on November 7, 1867, no one suspected that she would some day become a famous woman—least of all the Sklodowskas, pleased as they were. This was, after all, the Polish couple’s fifth child. People got used to the appearance of new babies by the time a fifth had arrived.

The Sklodowskas were not rich. Another baby meant that many practical things had to be done. There was another little mouth to feed, another pair of feet to wear out shoes that Mrs. Sklodowska made with her own hands.

No, no one suspected that this tiny baby was to become anything more important than her parents and their parents before them had been. All of them had lived ordinary, respectable lives as teachers, farmers, and small landowners. If the Sklodowskas had been asked which one of their children might be most likely to make something of himself, they would probably have pointed to Joseph, their only son. That would have been only natural, for in those days women were very much limited in what they might do, no matter how well-educated they were.

But the little newborn baby lying in her soft blankets that day in 1867 knew none of these things. Nor was she much aware of the four pairs of eyes, belonging to her brother and sisters, that peered over the edge of the cradle. The four—Zosia, Joseph, Hela, and Bronya—were not particularly impressed with the new arrival, either. Was this little thing, who only ate and slept and cried, what all the excitement had been about?

The new baby was named Manya. Her family lived in the city of Warsaw. Manya was born at a difficult time in Poland’s history, for that country had come under the rule of three foreign powers—Germany, Austria, and Russia. The Austrian and German kings and the Russian czar had invaded Poland earlier, and had divided the country into three parts.

Warsaw itself was under Russian rule. Knowing that the Polish people dreamed of regaining their freedom, the czar was determined to crush their spirit. He decreed that Russian was now the official language; Poles were not allowed to speak their native language any more. Children, too, had to speak Russian in the schools. This made their lessons twice as hard, for when the teacher asked them a question, they not only had to think of the answer, but also had to translate it into the difficult Russian language. And, if they made the slightest mistake in Russian grammar, they were punished.

Another of the czar’s laws forbade many books—especially those concerning Poland’s heroes, history, or literature. Teachers caught using such books or teaching such things were put in prison. Anyone who dared speak out against the Russian rulers was put to death, or exiled to Siberia—a cold, grim country where they were forced to work like slaves. Polish women lived under still another hardship; they could never hope to go to a university in Poland; the czar had decreed that only men could receive higher education.

In this atmosphere Manya spent her childhood. It was a strange climate for growing genius to flourish—a poor family in an oppressed nation. Even so, there were some advantages. Manya had a brother and three sisters to help her learn things. Her father was a teacher of mathematics and physics; he spoke eight languages and knew literature and poetry. Her mother had been a teacher, too, before Manya’s birth; she was also a good musician. Together the parents encouraged their children to learn much more than was taught in the Russian-controlled schools.

In addition, the Sklodowska children were taught to respect knowledge above everything else. They knew that this was something their oppressors could never take from them. True, money and land could be taken away; national pride could be trampled underfoot, families could be torn apart by the secret police and even put to death; but knowledge—that could never be taken away. Mr. Sklodowska often said to the children, “Rome conquered the world, but Greek learning conquered Rome.”

As Manya grew older, no one took special notice of her developing intelligence. But then, all of the Sklodowska children seemed gifted. Each child, in turn, won honors at schools. Thus, no one thought it unusual when Manya did the same.

Manya surprised everyone when she learned to read at the age of four. She had quietly watched Bronya playing with big letters cut from cardboard. Bronya explained to her little sister that the letters had names and sounds, and that they made words when they were put together. Manya understood. All she had to do was learn about the letters and then she could read books for herself whenever she pleased.

Manya studied the letters Bronya showed her. How easy it was! The next time Bronya had trouble reading a book for her parents, Manya grew impatient and read the words over her sister’s shoulder. However, her astonished parents decided they should not yet allow her to read. They were afraid she would be bored when she went to school, and would have nothing to do while the other children were learning to read.

Thus Manya was not allowed to have books until she started school. Disappointed, Manya could not understand how grown-up people thought. But soon the little girl discovered plenty of other things to do.

In the country there were many relatives to visit. Manya especially enjoyed visiting her cousins who lived in the mountains. There, there were no police to over-hear every word, and the children could speak Polish and sing Polish songs without being afraid. Manya’s relatives also had great, gentle farm horses to ride and sleek cows that gave rich milk. The barns were full of hay to tumble in, and there was a forest to gather nuts in.

Bronya and Manya reading

Manya loved the loamy Polish soil that sent up good, earthy smells, and she loved the fields covered with golden grain as far as the eye could see. The crisp air made her and the other children so hungry that they were never sufficiently filled. And such meals! Spicy red and black Polish sausages; bread with fat, dark raisins; plump geese baked with apples inside; and flaky dumplings shaped like little triangles with fruit inside them. Manya had reason to love the country with a passion that was to last her whole life.

In Warsaw, Manya loved to go to church. It was a beautiful building with windows made of bits of colored glass. Inside it was always solemn and quiet with priests in red, purple, and gold robes chanting services in soft melodious voices. And there was always the pungent smell of incense hanging in the air.

The Sklodowska children often went to church to pray for their mother. For Madame Sklodowska, tired and overworked after Manya’s birth, had tuberculosis, and had grown weaker with each year that passed. Manya however, was sure that God would make her well—her lovely mother whom she loved so much.

When Manya was six, she was sent to school. At last she could read as much as she wished. There was so much to learn, and soon she was getting the highest grade in every subject!

Manya loved school—except for the times when the fierce-looking Russian inspector came to see that everything was going as the czar had ordered. This man would listen carefully to the children recite the things they were required to learn—for example, the names of all the Russian czars—and woe to the teachers if the children did not answer correctly!

On the days when the inspector came, the teacher called most often on Manya, for she had learned to speak Russian perfectly. Also, she could be counted on not to make any mistakes in reciting the dull things the inspector wanted to hear. It seemed horrible to Manya to have to recite before the man who represented Poland’s oppressors. Nevertheless, she hid her rebelliousness, and forced herself to make her face completely blank as she recited.

As time went on, Manya had more reason to hate the Russian rule. Her father’s position was suddenly taken away by the Russian school principal under whom he taught. Mr. Sklodowska had spoken up for a student whom the principal had punished for making a mistake in Russian grammar. He had pointed out to the Russian that he himself often made such mistakes, but the principal became so angry that he used his power to relieve Manya’s father of his post.

As a result, the Sklodowskas had to move to a cheaper apartment. There they began taking in boarding students to help pay expenses. Zosia, Hela, Bronya, and Manya had to give up their bedrooms and sleep on couches in the dining room. Since Mr. Sklodowska had found work giving lessons to the boarding students, he no longer had much time for his own children. Thus, there were fewer of the pleasant evenings when all the family could gather together to hear Mr. Sklodowska read forbidden Polish literature.

Then more bad luck struck the Sklodowska family. Mr. Sklodowska invested nearly all his savings in a steam mill that his brother-in-law was financing. The venture failed and he lost all his money. Part of that money was to have provided for the children’s education. Now that it was gone, the children would have to earn their own money if they wanted more schooling.

Then, one of the students who lived with the Sklodowskas caught typhus, a deadly disease in those days. Bronya, together with Manya’s fourteen-year-old sister Zosia caught it too. Bronya and the student got well, but merry, golden-haired Zosia died.

Two and a half years later, sick and worn out, Manya’s mother also died. Only nine, the little girl could not understand why her prayers to God, asking Him to make her mother well, had not been answered. Her mother had been a good, kind woman. Why should God take her away from her children, who surely needed her more than He did? When Manya cried and asked one of her aunts why this should be, the woman merely looked sad and answered, “I don’t know, my child. God knows best.”

After his wife died, Manya’s father devoted himself entirely to his children. As the years passed, he saw first Hela, then Joseph and Bronya graduate from high school. Joseph later entered the University of Warsaw to study medicine, when Manya was in her last year of high school.

Manya’s hatred for Poland’s oppressors became stronger than ever, for that same year, 1883, the Russians executed the brother of one of her friends. The young man had been caught in a plot to overthrow the Russian rule and give Poland her freedom. To the end of her life Manya remembered her friend’s pale, tear-streaked face on the day when the girl knew her brother had only one more night to live.

That same night Manya and her sister stayed up with their friend. They could do nothing to help her—only share her grief. At the moment when the young man was to be executed, they fell on their knees and prayed. In that moment Manya, more than anything else, wanted the strength to do something for Poland. Fiercely, she longed for her country’s freedom so that other young men would not have to die such needless deaths.

Manya graduated from school a year earlier than most girls—and with the third gold medal in the family. For this, her father said she might have a year’s vacation in the country.

Manya stayed first with one relative, then with another. She went to parties in gay peasants’ costumes. At one of them, she danced her slippers through in a single night. She also rode the most spirited horses, swam farther and skated harder than any of her cousins. At still another relative’s home, she would drive a sleigh over stretches of sparkling snow-covered plains as fast as the horses could gallop.

At the end of the year Manya returned to Warsaw. Now she meant to begin the serious business of deciding what to do with her life.

2

The Young Governess

Bronya and Manya listened to the exciting stories their brother Joseph told them of university life. They knew what they were going to do with their lives—they would go to a university, too.

Above all, they wanted to help Poland regain her freedom. The sisters believed the best way to do this was to learn as much as they could and then teach other Poles. The Russians, of course, wanted to keep the people in ignorance, for it was much easier to rule people who had not had the chance to learn.

Bronya already knew that she wanted to study medicine. But Manya did not yet know what she wanted to study. She only knew that she wanted to go on learning things.

Both sisters realized that they would have to leave Poland and go to a foreign university if they were to get more education. But where was the money to come from?

It seemed to Manya that every pleasant thing in life took too much money. Although Mr. Sklodowska would soon retire, he would not be able to help his daughters much. Most of the money he had saved for his children’s education had been used in trying to cure his wife, so Bronya and Manya had to find a way to earn the money for their education themselves. But how? They had had little experience at anything. They were also very young—Bronya was twenty and Manya only seventeen.

Following the example of their father, the sisters were sure they could earn money by giving lessons to young children. Both had fine minds and, to recommend them, they could mention the honors they had won at school. In fact, Bronya had already given a few private lessons to several children of wealthy Warsaw families.

Manya decided to put an advertisement in the paper so that she might get some students, too. Her advertisement read:

LESSONS IN ARITHMETIC, GEOMETRY, FRENCH BY YOUNG LADY WITH DIPLOMA. MODERATE PRICES.

Manya did get a few pupils this way, but at the same time they caused her problems, too. Most of the pupils were from wealthy families and expected a tutor to come to them. Sometimes Manya had to travel long distances to reach her pupils. Often she was kept waiting because some lazy child wasn’t ready for his lesson. Sometimes a student would tell his family that he didn’t like Miss Sklodowska because she had assigned him too much work. In that case Manya was usually dismissed—and all too often without being paid the money that was owed her. Still, Manya kept at her tutoring. There seemed to be no other work she could do.

At this time, Manya also lead an exciting secret life. Like Manya and Bronya, there were many other young Poles who worked against their foreign rulers’ harsh efforts to stamp out patriotism and learning. These young people pretended to submit, but secretly they banded together to continue their education. This young people’s group was called the “Floating University.” Sometimes the students heard lectures on chemistry, sometimes on sociology, sometimes on literature or physiology. At other times they simply talked together about what they had read; often they taught working-class people. Always they encouraged each other to study. If they had been caught at this dangerous business of secret learning, they would all have been thrown into prison.

A year passed, and Manya still could not count on the number of pupils she might have from week to week. She found she had saved hardly any money from her teaching. At this rate she would never have enough money to leave Warsaw and go to a foreign university. And Bronya, her sister, was no better off. She, too, dreamed of the day she could continue her education—but it seemed that day would never come.

True, the “Floating University” helped but it was no longer enough for the Sklodowska sisters to study in secret. They wanted to be able to continue their education openly, without fear and without having to hide their books.

Manya, who was very practical, began to figure out how much money they would need for train fare, tuition, room and board, and so on. It would have to be enough to last them from the moment they left until they got their degrees. Next she estimated how much money they could make working as governesses.

Manya sighed. It would take many years to save the amount they needed. Manya, being the younger, could afford to wait longer, but Bronya was already twenty and should go sooner. Manya knew that Bronya had already saved enough to pay for her transportation and one year’s expenses at the Sorbonne in Paris. But the medical course, which Bronya wanted so much to take, took five years.

In Manya’s mind, there was only one solution. She, Manya, would get a job as a governess and live in her employer’s home. That way none of her salary would have to be used for room, board or laundry, and in this way, she could thus save everything she earned. Then, if Bronya took the money she already had and went to Paris—and if Manya sent most of her salary to her there—the older sister could go straight through medical school without having to wait so many years. After that, when Bronya had graduated and had a practice, it would be her turn to help Manya leave Warsaw and come to study in Paris.

But Bronya hesitated when Manya told her of her plan. This was a great sacrifice that Manya offered to make. It would mean that Manya could not hope to get to Paris for at least five years. Nevertheless, Manya insisted.

“After all,” she told Bronya, “you are older than I. You should have the chance to get first. When my turn comes, you can help me.”

And so, when Bronya left for Paris, Manya accepted a job as governess in the distant Polish province of Szczuki. At first she was lonely, away from her friends and family. She worked very hard to fill her hours so that there would be less time to think of home. In her leisure time she organized a little reading school for the peasant children of the village. In this way, she remained true to her ideal of helping Poland by teaching the people. Of course, such activities were forbidden and Manya would have been sent to Siberia if she had been caught.

At night after everyone was in bed, Manya studied the things that interested her. She borrowed volumes of sociology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and literature. She was determined to prepare herself for the day when she could study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

When Manya reached some particularly difficult place in her lonely studies, she wrote her father about it. He would answer, explaining the problems as well as he could. Gradually the young governess found that she most enjoyed physics and mathematics. These were the subjects she would study when she got to Paris! Manya’s father encouraged her to turn to science. He himself had always wanted to work in a laboratory, but the Russians had not allowed him to have one.

At times, however, it seemed to Manya that she would never be able to get away and continue her education. The years passed so slowly!

Manya Sklodowska spent three and a half years teaching as a governess, saving her money, and studying alone. The only other young people she ever saw were the children of the family she worked for. Everyone in the family seemed to like her, parents as well as children. At night, however, after her lessons with the children were over, it seemed that someone was always interrupting her own studies to ask her to play cards or chess, or just to talk.

When Casimir, the eldest son of the family, came home on vacation from his studies in Warsaw, he was enchanted with the new governess. Among her other accomplishments, she could skate, ride, and play cards. Also, he found her exceptionally intelligent. Besides that, she was pretty, with her fair skin and sparkling gray eyes.

Casimir fell in love with the young woman. Manya, too, felt she loved Casimir. But when the young man told his parents he wanted to marry Manya, they were very angry.

“We will never allow you to marry a mere governess,” they told him. “Why, the girl hasn’t a cent to her name. What would people say if our son married a girl who is little better then a servant? It would be a disgrace.”

Casimir did not want to make his parents angry with him. He did love Manya—but not enough to go against his parents’ wishes. Manya was very hurt. She had thought Casimir’s family liked and respected her for her intelligence and ability. Now she knew they merely used her as a servant and looked down on her because she was not from a rich family.

In those days a European girl was expected to bring her husband a dowry—a sum of money—when she married. The larger the dowry, the better a marriage she could make. But the only dowry Manya could bring her husband when she married was her clever mind and good nature—and that, it seemed, was not enough to satisfy Casimir’s family.

Naturally, Manya wanted to leave Casimir’s family after this treatment, but she knew she could never make as large a salary in Warsaw. She also knew that Bronya depended on this money for her tuition. Manya hid her pain and disappointment and stayed on until Casimir’s little sister, Andzia, no longer needed her. Then she returned to Warsaw and got another job as a governess.

One day, soon after her return to Warsaw, a letter came from Bronya. The older sister wrote that she was soon to be married to a young doctor, Casimir Dluski. She would not need any more money from Manya. And, since she and her husband were going to live in Paris until Bronya finished her studies, Manya was invited to come and live with them. She would need only enough money for her tuition at the university—but it took Manya another year to save that much.

During that year Manya was able to work in a real laboratory for the first time. It was directed by one of her cousins and it was a secret laboratory, for the Russians would have forbidden it had they known about it. The sign on the front of the building said “Museum of Industry and Agriculture,” because the authorities would not object to a museum. At night and on week ends young Poles gathered there to make scientific experiments. Here, Manya too could test many of the things she had read about in her lonely studies as a governess.

The youngest Sklodowska girl was completely happy working in this small, poorly equipped laboratory. Before she had ever seen a laboratory she had been drawn to science; now that she could actually work in one she knew she would never be content with anything else. From that time on, Manya knew she would become a scientist.

Finally in September of 1891, Manya had saved enough money to go to Paris. The day she had thought would never come had really arrived! Already she had her passport and her train ticket.

Manya planned to travel fourth class because it was cheapest. That meant the railway car would be unheated and there would be only wooden benches to sit on, yet this did not matter to the happy young girl. She also planned to carry everything with her that would make living expenses cheaper in Paris—mattress, sheets, towels, clothes, books, and tea.

At last Manya climbed aboard the train where she would stay for the whole three-day journey. All her things were piled around her—a little brown trunk, several bags, and boxes.

Manya on the train for Paris

Manya kissed her aging father good-by. She felt sad at leaving him, and tears filled her gray eyes.

“I’ll be back,” she told him, “as soon as I have my degree. Then we’ll never be separated again.”

“Good luck.” called Mr. Sklodowska. “Work hard!” Manya needed no urging, however, for she thought of nothing but hard work as the train clattered across Germany, Belgium, and into France. At last she could study the things she liked as much as she wanted. She, Manya Sklodowska, was going to attend the Sorbonne in the free city of Paris!

3

Manya in Paris

Manya found that in Paris there was a whole new life to get used to. She fell in love immediately with the whirl and bustle of the French capital. Here a person could talk about anything he liked, express any opinion he wished, read any book he wanted to read without hiding it—and do it in any language he cared to use.

Manya had registered at the university as Marie Sklodowska. Marie was French for Mary, just as Manya was Polish for the same name. Marie would be easier for her new companions at the Sorbonne to pronounce. For the rest of her life, the Polish girl would be known as Marie.

When classes began, Marie found she had to work much harder than most of the other students. First, she had to get used to understanding complicated lectures in rapidly spoken French, for she didn’t want to miss a single word. Marie also found that there were blank spots in her knowledge of physics and mathematics. Her lonely nights of study, when she was a governess, had not fully prepared her for the advanced work at the Sorbonne. Marie’s light was seldom out before the early hours of the morning. Even at that, it seemed there was not time enough for all she wanted to learn.

The trip to the university from Bronya’s house took an hour on the big horse-drawn omnibus. Marie regretted that the two hours a day spent in traveling could not be put to better use studying. Also, her gay, clever brother-in-law could think up entirely too many inviting things to do; it was hard for Marie to concentrate on her studies in his house. The doctor and Bronya had many friends, some of whom came by every night. Among them was a young musician who was later to become the world-famous pianist, Paderewski. There was always something going on—amateur musical concerts, parties, games, or cards. The merrymakers would not leave Marie alone with her books; besides, the activities were entirely too pleasant for her to resist.

At last Marie decided she would have to live in a room by herself if she was ever to catch up in her studies After much looking about, she found a cheap, tiny, attic room near the Sorbonne. There her work really began. No longer was there any time for fun. Marie did not even take time out to cook; instead, she lived on bread and butter, tea, and fruit. She grew thin and ill on this diet. Moreover, the dreary little room was up six long flights of stairs. Each day, Marie had to struggle up these stairs with water and the little coal she could afford. Many nights she had to pile every piece of clothing she owned on her bed to keep warm.

Marie divided her money into monthly portions and allowed herself only so much during any one month. She bought new clothing only when her old things could not be mended any more. The greatest crisis she faced was when her shoes wore out and could not be patched again. She had to decide whether to eat or to buy new shoes. The day of decision, however, was put off as long as possible by stuffing cardboard “soles” inside the worn-out shoes.

Manya worked late into the night in her attic room near the Sorbonne

Yet Marie did not really mind the difficult life. She knew these things were necessary if she was to make her money last long enough to earn her degree.

The Polish student was now spending every spare minute with her books or in the university laboratory. Soon she came to love the laboratory with its constant smell of chemicals, and peaceful atmosphere of students concentrating over their experiments. And surely and deftly Marie was learning to handle the delicate laboratory equipment.

Many of the young men in Marie’s classes noticed her. Some of them tried to talk to Marie. In spite of her drab, carefully mended dresses and worn shoes, there was something appealing about her. But they were puzzled after speaking to this shy girl from Poland. She was not like most other girls; all she cared to talk about was science. She seemed to have no time for young men.

Marie had decided long ago that no one could love a poor girl who had no dowry. She had been deeply hurt when her former employers had told their son that he could not marry a mere governess. Perhaps honesty and intelligence by themselves were not enough. In Paris, Marie determined to stick to her laboratory work, where not money but able hands and a keen mind were all that she needed.

The only recreation Marie allowed herself was to meet now and then with a group of other Polish students studying in Paris. These young people talked of the ways they might help Poland gain her freedom when they finally returned to their homeland. But soon Marie’s studies made it necessary for her to drop even these pleasant meetings.

Each evening she would study in the university library until it closed. It was warm there and she could save her own coal and lamp oil. When the library closed she would go back to her room and work until the early morning hours. Then she would fall into bed exhausted.

In the morning she would awake just in time to go off to another day of classes, gulp down a hasty meal, and spend long hours in the laboratory and library.

By such hard work, Marie at last caught up in her studies. In 1893 she passed her examinations with the highest grade in her class. She was then awarded the master’s degree in physics.

But Marie wanted even more education. One degree was not enough. She wanted another—a master’s degree in mathematics. Yet where was the money to come from this time?

Marie took the train to Warsaw for the summer vacation. She puzzled over her financial problem for weeks. Then, quite unexpectedly, help came. Marie was given a scholarship that she had not even applied for! One of her friends had managed to convince influential people that she deserved it. Surprised and thankful, Marie accepted. The scholarship would give her enough money to live abroad for fifteen months. Fifteen months! Her degree in mathematics now seemed certain.

So another year passed. For Marie, it was another one of too few meals, too little sleep, and not enough coal in the tiny heater in her attic room. In 1894 Marie received her master’s degree in mathematics. This time she stood second highest in her class.

In later years, Marie returned the money to the people who had given her the scholarship. She wanted some other poor student to have the same chance she had been given.

In spite of all the hardships she had had to endure, Marie always remembered these lonely years of study as one of the happiest periods of her life. It was happy because she was doing exactly what she wanted to do. Later she wrote, “For myself, I shall always consider one of my best memories...that period of solitary years exclusively devoted to my studies.”

In addition to studying mathematics during her last year at the Sorbonne, Marie had begun her first research job. One of her teachers, Professor Lippmann, had helped her to get an assignment from the Society for Encouragement of National Industry. Marie was to make a study of the magnetic properties of various steels. She began this work in the professor’s own laboratory. However, there was not enough room for all the equipment she needed. Marie was worried, for this was her first job and she wanted to do it as well as possible. She spoke of her problem to another Polish physicist, Dr. Kovalski. He said that he could not help her himself, but he knew someone who might be able to.

“My friend, Pierre Curie, is a professor at the School of Physics and Chemistry,” said Dr. Kovalski. “Perhaps he might have a workroom he can let you use. Come to visit my wife and me tomorrow. I’ll invite Monsieur Curie and you two can talk about it.”

“Thank you,” Marie answered. “I shall be happy to come.”

4

Monsieur Pierre Curie

Marie felt immediately at ease with the shy young Frenchman she met at the Kovalski home. Kindly and patiently, he listened to her story of the work she was doing. He seemed to understand how important it was to her. Yes, he told her, he would try to help her find a place to work in his school. Then he told her about some of the research he himself was doing. Marie found that Pierre Curie was not only kind, but brilliant as well.

As for Pierre, he was impressed by this serious young woman. It was not just that she was charming to look at. Her soft, curly hair, her gray eyes, her lovely high forehead were pretty. Even her hands, stained with chemicals, appealed to Pierre. But more than that, she, like himself, planned to devote her life to science.

Pierre Curie had known since childhood that he wanted to be a scientist. But never had he met a woman who felt about science as he did himself. As he talked with this young woman, Pierre found that she seemed to understand everything he told her about his work. Before the evening was over, he had asked her if he could see her again.

Marie found she was not afraid to say yes when Pierre asked to visit her. Here was a man who seemed interested in her mind, not her dowry! Here was a man who loved science as she did.

A few days later, Pierre did visit Marie in her bare little room. He could see that it had not been easy for her to manage. As for Marie, the more she saw Pierre, the more she liked him. They spent hours discussing their work and their dreams. It was Pierre’s particular dream to devote his whole life to scientific research. He hoped, through his work, to do things that would make life happier and healthier for people.

Marie understood this dream very well indeed! It was, after all, very similar to her own.

As they saw more and more of each other, Pierre found himself telling Marie things he had never told any other girl. He told her about his parents, with whom he still lived in a little cottage in the Paris suburbs. Pierre’s father had been a doctor, and so had his father before him. So Pierre and his older brother, Jacques, had been introduced to science at an early age. Dr. Curie, like Marie’s father, had been interested in doing scientific research. But he had been so busy earning a living for his family that he had been unable to spend much time at it. It had been necessary that he treat patients who could pay him fees. However, he had been able to work on developing a vaccination that would protect people against tuberculosis.

Marie felt immediately at ease with the shy young Frenchman, Pierre Curie

Dr. Curie often took his sons into the country with him to look for animals and plants for his experiments. The boys learned to love the outdoors and often rambled through the country together after they were grown. Pierre in particular never tired of walking through the fields and forests, studying all the plant and animal life that surrounded him. Sometimes he invited Marie to go for a Sunday walk with him. She was amazed at how much this young physicist knew about botany and zoology. He seemed to love and respect everything that lived.

Pierre often talked to Marie about his brother Jacques. The two brothers were very fond of each other. Jacques had a quick mind and learned rapidly. Pierre, on the other hand, was slower and more deliberate in what he did. They worked well together, for Pierre’s careful thinking often caught mistakes Jacques made, and Jacques’ quickness was stimulating to Pierre.

Pierre’s parents had realized that he would probably not do well in a regular school. His mind could not jump quickly from one subject to another. It was difficult for him to spend an hour on mathematics, another on science, still another on language and so on. Whenever he attacked a problem, Pierre worked on it until it was entirely clear in his mind, even if it took him days.

Dr. Curie decided to educate him at home. He believed Pierre would learn more that way. Dr. Curie taught him some subjects while Pierre’s mother taught him others. Later they hired a tutor to instruct him in advanced mathematics.

Pierre made great progress because he was allowed to learn in the way that best suited him. He passed examinations for a bachelor of science degree when he was only sixteen. Later, when he was eighteen, he received a degree in science from the Sorbonne. The young man was especially interested in physics and decided to do research in that field.

Marie was excited to discover that Pierre had already made some marvelous discoveries through his research. He and Jacques had worked together in their spare time when they first graduated from school. Jacques was also a physicist. In 1880, when Pierre was only twenty-one, the two brothers made an important new scientific discovery—piezoelectricity. The brothers found that when certain crystals were pressed, an electric charge developed on them. Or, if the crystals were charged with electricity, they expanded in one direction and contracted in another. Pierre and Jacques wondered how they could apply this new principle so that it would be useful to man.

After a great deal of work, they invented an instrument called the electrometer. It was based on their newly discovered piezoelectricity, and was capable of measuring very tiny amounts of electricity accurately. The electrometer was to be of great value to later scientists.

Soon after the electrometer was invented, the brothers separated, taking jobs in different cities. Pierre became director of the laboratories at the School of Physics and Chemistry in Paris. Later, when other scientists realized how important their work was, the Curie brothers were given the Planté prize—one of the highest honors France could pay a scientist.

In his every spare minute, Pierre worked on some new research project that interested him. Often this work was with crystals. A crystal is a solid body bounded by plane faces, which meet at angles that are characteristic of the substance of which it is composed. Crystals may be made of many substances. For example, they may be minerals like quartz or feldspar. Diamonds and rubies are also crystals; so are snowflakes. Salt, sugar, and other chemical compounds form crystals under certain conditions. Some crystals have four sides, some six. Many crystals also have the characteristic of being symmetrical—that is, if they are cut in half, each side will be shaped just like the other side. This is so because a crystal’s atoms are in definite arrangements, like soldiers in formation.

It was Pierre Curie who discovered this principle of symmetry in crystals. He then went on to study other examples of symmetry in nature. The principle of symmetry is very important in the study of physics today. And crystals have many industrial uses, such as in radio transmitters and scientific instruments.

Pierre also developed a new type of scale. It could be used to weigh tiny amounts of material both accurately and rapidly. It became known to other scientists as the “Curie balance.”

The magnetic properties of different materials was another subject that interested Pierre. Many substances can be magnetized; that is, made to attract or repel other substances. Pierre decided to study some of them. After many experiments he made another discovery that later became known as Curie’s law. It meant that the magnetic properties of substances change at a certain temperature. This temperature is known as the Curie point. Today the magnetic properties of various materials are very important in telephones, telegraphs, radios, and television equipment.

Pierre was becoming well known for his discoveries when he met Marie. Yet, at the same time, she found him so shy that he could not bring himself to ask for a raise or a higher position. Nor did Pierre believe in seeking honors and awards, for he felt that a scientist could become more interested in getting them than in doing good work.

As Marie grew to know Pierre better, she encouraged him to apply for his doctor’s degree. Accordingly, Pierre decided to present the results of his research on magnetism to the professors at the Sorbonne. He asked Marie to come and listen while he discussed his work before the examining professors. How proud Marie felt when they awarded him his doctor’s degree for his outstanding work!

Pierre had also made the friendship of Lord Kelvin, the famous English physicist. After Pierre received his degree, Lord Kelvin and another French physicist persuaded Pierre’s superiors to give him a higher position. As a result, he was made professor of physics at the School of Physics and Chemistry.

In the months that followed, Marie grew to understand Pierre more and more; she also shared his dream of dedicating her life to science. But Marie had another dream, too: she wanted to do something to help Poland. So it came about that when Pierre asked her to marry him and share his life, Marie hesitated.

Although Marie knew that she loved Pierre, she realized that if she married a Frenchman she would probably have to remain in France. Thus, she felt that she would be deserting Poland and her family. Therefore, after she received her master’s degree in mathematics, Marie decided to return to Warsaw for the summer. There she could think her problem through quietly.

Marie also had to think of her father. He was an old man now, and she knew he had been looking forward to the time when his daughter would return to Poland and brighten his last years. If she married Pierre and settled down in France, she would only see her father on rare visits.

That summer in Poland Marie thought a great deal about what to do. Finally, she felt she must talk to her father about Pierre and tell him how much she loved him.

“What do you think I should do, Father?” asked Marie.

“It is your decision to make, my child,” her father answered. “Whatever I might selfishly want for myself, my dearest wish is that you find happiness. If you love this man and feel that you will be happy together, then there is nothing to be done but for you to marry him.”

Marie kissed her father. Many times during the next few months she was to think of what he had said to her.

5

The Wedding

Throughout the summer of 1894, Marie remained in Warsaw, trying to make up her mind whether to marry Pierre Curie. In October, although she had still not decided whether to accept Pierre’s proposal, Marie returned to Paris. This time she went to live in a small room next to Bronya’s office, and, since Bronya only held consultations during the day, Marie could spend her evenings working without interruption.

Pierre, however, never left off trying to persuade Marie to marry him. At one point, he was even willing to give up everything he had planned to do in Paris and go to Poland with Marie—a tremendous sacrifice to make, for so devoted a scientist.

For ten months after returning from Warsaw, Marie struggled to make up her mind whether to marry this man whom she loved and admired. If she accepted Pierre, it would mean spending the rest of her life in France, and away from her father whom she adored. Finally, in the summer of 1895, Marie agreed to become Madame Curie.

Their wedding was as simple as one could imagine. The ceremony took place on July 26, in the city hall of Sceaux, the home of Pierre’s parents. For Marie, there was no white bridal dress, only a plain dark woolen suit. Marie had chosen it with the idea that she would later be able to wear it in the laboratory. The only real possessions that the young couple had were two bicycles, bought with money they had received as a wedding present. But whatever they lacked in material things was made up for by the great love that the young pair showed for each other.

Pierre’s parents were there, of course, and Bronya and Casimir. And Mr. Sklodowska had come all the way from Warsaw, bringing Marie’s sister Hela with him. To Pierre’s father, Mr. Skoldowska said: “You will have a daughter worthy of affection in Marie. Since she came into the world she has never caused me pain.” Only Joseph, of the Sklodowska family, was not present. But he had already sent his blessing to his sister and brother-to-be in a letter, in which he said to Marie: “I would infinitely rather see you in Paris, happy and contented, than back again in our country, broken by the sacrifice of a whole life.”

Shortly after the wedding, Pierre and Marie went off on their new bicycles to roam the picturesque countryside of France. They hiked through the meadows, climbed hills, and wandered through woods—as if they had not a care in the world.

Eventually, however, they returned to Paris and to the work that awaited each of them. In October of 1895, Monsieur and Madame Curie settled into a bare little three-room flat, whose only bit of charm was a small garden at the back of the building. They spent almost no money on furniture, and even turned down several offers by Pierre’s father of chairs.

After the wedding, Marie and Pierre roamed the countryside on their bicycles

Marie knew she would have little time for the ordinary duties of housekeeping, and the less furniture they had, the less dusting and cleaning.

Pierre was teaching, of course, and he earned just enough to keep them from real poverty. Marie still had to finish her work at the Sorbonne before she could hope to get a teaching job and help increase their income.

She was very busy, between her eight hours of study and her housekeeping duties. Since she had Pierre’s health to think of, she could no longer skip meals or do without groceries. Also, Marie had never really learned to cook, and she spent hours “experimenting” with her cook book, using her scientific training to attack this new form of “research.”

In March of 1897, Marie wrote to an old friend from her high school days that she was expecting a child. She complained of the dizzy spells she was suffering, not because they made her feel bad, but because they kept her back from doing her work. Pierre’s mother had recently become ill with cancer, and Marie resented her own weakness because she wanted to do all she could to help her mother-in-law.

Marie continued to carry out her demanding daily schedule, and even went off on another bicycling trip with Pierre only two months before the baby was to be born! This trip, which began in August, had to be cut short, however; Marie made a hasty return to Paris, and, on September 12, 1897, little Irène Curie was born.

Even having a baby seemed to make little difference in Marie’s life, so far as her work was concerned. As soon as she was able to be up and around, Marie hired a nurse for the baby (this did not cost very much in those days), and was back at the laboratory of the Sorbonne, continuing her studies.

About the time Marie was giving birth to her baby, other things were being born in the world of science—new ideas. In 1896, Dr. Henri Becquerel had presented to the French Academy of Science, a paper about a new phenomenon that he had been investigating. Becquerel did not know what caused this thing he had discovered; he did not even have a name for it. No one, of course, guessed that it would be Marie Curie who would actually identify and name this phenomenon radioactivity.

Marie and Pierre already knew of the work being done by Becquerel, and of his experiments with a mysterious element called uranium. Marie read with great excitement Becquerel’s description of the peculiar “radiation” that uranium seemed to give off all by itself. Becquerel knew that this radiation was not caused by the sun, because he had been keeping the uranium in a dark place. But beyond this nothing was really known about the phenomenon.

Here, Marie thought was a fascinating subject on which to do research for a doctor’s degree. It was so new that no one had really had a chance to work on it. She could start at the very beginning, and, if her work led to a really important discovery, she, Marie Sklodowska Curie, would have contributed much to science.

6

Two New Elements

Marie needed a workroom for the delicate instruments she would need to perform her experiments. Pierre tried to help her find a place to work. They searched everywhere, but the only place they could find was a small, damp storeroom with glass walls at the school where Pierre taught. In the summer the Curies found it hot and stuffy there, and in the winter it was so cold Marie’s fingers become stiff. Marie did not mind the discomfort, but she did mind that her instruments had to stay in such a place; the dampness affected them so that they were not so accurate.

Marie began to plan carefully how she would attack her research problem. First she decided to find out how strong the rays from different uranium compounds were. To do this, she would have to measure the time her samples took to make an electrical charge leak away in an electroscope. The stronger the sample’s rays were, the faster this would happen. In her experiments, Marie used a method that Pierre and Jacques had developed in their early research together. Luckily, she had the brothers’ electrometer to help her.

The Curie’s laboratory was a small, damp storeroom with glass walls, at the school where Pierre taught

After a few weeks of careful experimenting, Marie told Pierre that the compounds with the most uranium in them had the strongest radiation. She had also found that the radiation could not be made weaker or stronger by treating uranium with other chemicals. Also, the uranium’s radiation seemed not to be affected by light, heat, electricity or temperature changes.

As Marie talked to Pierre about her work, she began to wonder whether there were any other chemical elements that also gave off rays. In order to find out, she would have to test all the known elements; in 1897 there were only eighty that scientists knew about. Marie cheerfully went to work to test them all.

Before long she proudly reported to Pierre that she had found another element that gave off rays like uranium. This element was called thorium. Now that she had found radiation in more than one element, Marie decided this chemical property, or characteristic, must have a name. She called it radioactivity, meaning “giving off rays.” Marie also called the elements that produced the rays radioelements.

Uranium and thorium were found in a number of minerals. Minerals, however, contain many substances besides the valuable ones that scientists want. If a scientist wants to obtain a pure sample, he must separate the substances from the mineral ore. This is exactly what Marie had to do before she began testing her substances for radioactivity.

She tested as many minerals as she could get and separated all those that showed radioactivity. In measuring the amounts of radioactivity in the minerals, Marie noticed something very surprising. Some of the minerals showed three or four times as much radioactivity as the pure uranium and thorium samples had. These minerals were pitchblende, chalcocite, and uranite.

Marie was greatly puzzled. She knew the radioelements in the minerals were mixed in with many other elements that were not radioactive; therefore, they should have had less radioactivity than the pure radio-elements. Marie thought she must have made a mistake in her tests and repeated them. Still she got the same results—more radioactivity in the mineral than in the pure compound!

Many times Marie repeated her tests with the electrometer, weighed and reweighed her samples, and precisely recorded the readings from the instruments. At last she realized the strange result could not be a mistake. What was causing this strong radioactivity? The amount of uranium and thorium, which she knew was in the minerals, could not be causing it. And she had already tested every other known element. None of them, she was sure, could be causing it either.

Marie looked at her three baffling minerals—the crumbly black pitchblende, the sparkling green chalcocite and the yellow crystals of uranite. What was their secret? Marie Curie came to a conclusion that was to change the course of science; there must be hidden in the minerals some new and unknown element. The unknown element must be more strongly radioactive than uranium and thorium. Other chemists had analyzed the minerals before and had not noticed a new element; therefore, it had to be hidden in very tiny amounts in the minerals.

Greatly excited, Marie could hardly wait to talk to Pierre about her work each night. Again and again they discussed Marie’s hypothesis concerning her findings. A hypothesis is a working theory that a scientist believes to be true, but which has not been actually proved. More than anything, Marie wanted to prove her hypothesis—that a new element had been found—to be true.

Pierre was just as excited as his wife was; he agreed that this must be worked on at once. So important did it seem to Pierre that he decided to stop his own research on crystals and help Marie. Working together as a team, they hoped to find more quickly the new element hidden somewhere in the minerals Marie had tested.

Marie and Pierre decided to concentrate on only one of the three highly radioactive minerals in their experiments. They chose pitchblende because it showed four times as much radioactivity as pure uranium—even after the uranium had been removed from it! The Curies estimated that they would find about one part out of a hundred parts of the minerals to be the new element. To them, that seemed a very small amount indeed. What they did not know was that the element they were looking for was not present even as one part out of a million parts of the pitchblende!

Marie and Pierre planned a new way to analyze the pitchblende. All they knew about the new element was that it gave off rays. Their only clue was to search for it by following the rays. Since pitchblende is made up of many elements, they decided to take the different parts of the pitchblende away until only the new element remained.

Pitchblende contains lead and very small amounts of other elements, such as silver, copper, barium, nickel, bismuth, and cobalt. The Curies wanted to separate all these elements. Then they would measure the radioactivity of each. The part that still showed radioactivity would have to be the part in which the new element was hiding.

To separate the different elements, the Curies put the pitchblende in big tubs and boiled it with chemicals and acids. Some of the different parts of the mineral boiled at a lower temperature than other parts did. If they kept the temperature of the liquid at just the right point, they could boil off the unwanted material. When one part was separated it went into another tub and was set aside. Then more chemicals were poured into what was left and the mixture was boiled again until another portion was separated.

These boiling mixtures had to be stirred all the time with a heavy iron bar. The liquids that had to be lifted were very heavy. The chemicals made poisonous fumes as they boiled, so the cooking had to be done outdoors where the air could carry the fumes away. It was back-breaking work for the Curies, but they kept at it.

Each separation carried them that much nearer the solution to their mystery.

Finally the pitchblende was broken up into all its component parts. But instead of finding only one part radioactive, the Curies found two. This meant but one thing to Marie and Pierre: there must be two new radioactive elements instead of just one! One of the elements seemed to be hidden away in the barium part of the pitchblende; the other was in the bismuth portion.

The Curies decided to work on identifying the new element mixed in with the bismuth first. They made more and more separations. The containers holding the products grew smaller and smaller. Finally, in July of 1898, a test tube held all that was left from the many boilings and separations. In the test tube was a mixture about 400 times as radioactive as uranium. It contained bismuth and one of the new elements. There was enough of the new element in the mixture for Marie and Pierre to be able to find some, but not all, of its chemical properties.

“You must name the new element, Marie,” said Pierre.

Marie decided to name the new element polonium, after her native Poland. When the oppressors of that country heard of the new element, they would know that they had not been able to crush all of the Polish people.

Marie and Pierre decided they needed a vacation as a reward for their hard work. They got on their bicycles, took Irène with them and went off to the country. They discussed how they would search for the second element all summer. When fall came, they were ready to return to their work.

Marie was sad when she returned to Paris, however: Bronya and her husband had decided to go back to Poland and build a tuberculosis sanitorium. Bronya, like Marie, had always felt she could return to her native country and do something to make life better for the Polish people. The two sisters hated to part, but both felt that the job Bronya had chosen for herself came first. Soon afterward, Marie wrote Bronya:

“You can’t imagine what a hole you have made in my life. With you two gone, I have lost everything I clung to in Paris except my husband and child.”

Marie and Pierre kept on with the work on their new metals. In December of 1898 they had found the second element. They had traced it by its rays into the last test tube where it still remained hidden in barium. They named this brilliant second child of their work radium, from the Latin for “ray.” This element’s radioactivity was 900 times as great as that of uranium!

As with their polonium mixture, the radium mixture was not pure enough to allow the Curies to find all of its chemical properties. Their next step would be to get a compound with more radium and less barium.

7

Radium!

Marie and Pierre knew that their most difficult work lay ahead of them. They knew that polonium and radium existed, but other scientists would not believe it until they saw the pure, isolated elements.

“Show us your elements,” scientists everywhere said to Marie and Pierre. “When we can see and feel and weigh them, then we will believe in them.”

So the Curies set to work. They knew that they would have to treat huge amounts of pitchblende to get even enough radium to see. Yet they had so little money—how could they hope to pay for this expensive mineral? They knew they could not hope to get money from the government, scientific societies, or the University of Paris. There seemed to be money for all sorts of other things, but little for scientific research.

How, Marie wondered, could she get pitchblende for less than the usual price? There must be some way. She and Pierre knew that pitchblende was mined in Austria; there uranium was separated out of the mineral to be used in coloring glass. What was left was simply thrown in a big dump in a pine wood near the mine. Although the miners thought this material was useless, Marie and Pierre knew that polonium and radium were still hidden in the “waste” part of the pitchblende. Perhaps they could buy this part of the mineral cheaper. They wrote the Academy of Sciences in Vienna and asked. Soon a letter came back to them in a stiff official envelope. The letter said they could have a ton of the pitchblende for almost nothing, provided they were willing to pay the transportation charges.

Next, the Curies had to find a larger workroom for they would need more space to treat such large amounts of pitchblende. The only place they could find, however, was another room at Pierre’s school. It was really just a shed. The roof leaked and the “floor” was made of earth. There was only an old table, a blackboard, and a rusty stove in it. Moreover, the shed was damp and smelled of mold. But Marie and Pierre knew it would do, so they set to work.

Finally the pitchblende arrived. The heavy, fat brown sacks were piled on a wagon drawn by two big, sleek draft horses. The workman unloaded them on the sidewalk and Marie opened one. There it was—her pitchblende—still mixed with pine needles from the forest. Yet, somewhere in it, she knew there was radium and polonium!

Again the big tubs of pitchblende boiled, bubbled, and gave off fumes. Again Marie stirred her mixtures hour after hour with the huge iron bar. All day long she filled tubs, stirred and poured the liquids back and forth.

Finally, the heavy, brown sacks of pitchblende arrived

At noon she cooked lunch over the laboratory burner. She and Pierre ate sitting among buckets and tubs of different parts of pitchblende scattered all about the shed.

On many winter days, Marie could be seen bundled up outside the shed, tending her muddy, boiling mixtures. When summer came, the fires made the laboratory unbearably hot. Two years passed, and still the Curies had not found either of their radioactive metals. Yet because they knew by now that radium would be the easiest one to find, they decided to search for it first.

Sometimes, when they got tired, they would stop and heat a pot of tea over a laboratory burner. They would talk of their work and their metals.

“I wonder what it will look like when we find it,” Marie would say.

And Pierre would answer, smiling, “I hope it has a very beautiful color.”

Despite the hard work, Marie and Pierre were happy working together. During this time she wrote her sister:

“Our life is always the same. We work a lot but we sleep well. During the whole of this year we have not been either to the theater or a concert, and we have not paid one visit....I miss my family enormously, above all you, my dears, and father....I cannot complain of anything else, for our health is not bad, the child is growing well, and I have the best husband one could dream of; I could never have imagined finding one like him...the more we live together, the more we love each other.”

Marie and Pierre decided they would make faster progress if they took separate problems to solve. Marie said she would work on finding pure radium. Pierre thought he would work on finding out all he could about the element’s rays. What were they made of? What could they do?

Pierre solved his problem faster than Marie. He found that the element was giving off not one, but three different kinds of rays. He called the rays alpha, beta and gamma—the names of the first three letters in the Greek alphabet.

The alpha and beta rays seemed to be made up of tiny particles thrown out with great force from inside the atom. They were like high-speed bullets. These particles carried an electrical charge—alpha rays are made up of positively charged particles; beta rays are made up of negatively charged particles. Gamma rays contain no particles. Though they were similar to light waves and X-rays, Pierre suspected they were produced inside the atoms of the element instead of outside the atoms, as ordinary X-rays were. The gamma rays seemed to be a burst of energy, which was produced as a “by-product” when the alpha and beta particles were shot out The alpha rays could be stopped by a sheet of paper and they could not burn the skin. It took an inch-thick piece of wood to stop the beta rays and they could cause a bad burn. The gamma rays could go deeply into nearly any solid material. Only a thick piece of lead could stop them. A gamma-ray burn took a long time to heal.

Again and again the wagon came, bringing more bags of pitchblende. By 1900, the Curies had used up all their money on their experiments. They knew that somehow they had to make more, so Pierre took a job teaching at a branch of the Sorbonne. Marie herself got a teaching job at the Higher Normal School for Girls at Sèvres. But every free moment the Curies could spare they spent in their laboratory. As they got closer to finding radium, the glow from their vats of concentrated products grew brighter.

Sometimes a young chemist named André Debierne came to help them. Pierre and Marie told him they thought there was still another radioactive element in yet another mineral. Debierne began working on this problem and discovered the element, which he named actinium. He was able to purify it before the Curies purified their own two elements.

Sometimes it seemed impossible to the Curies that they would ever find radium. Pierre became so discouraged that he wanted to stop the work. But Marie would not think of stopping. “We must keep on,” she told Pierre. “We must."

And they did. Sometimes they worked such long hours that they forgot to eat. Marie grew thin and Pierre was often sick.

But finally, in 1902, Marie knew she was nearing success. After four years, she no longer had to boil large amounts of material outdoors. Now she treated small amounts of her radium-barium mixture by a process called fractional crystallization. This was the most difficult stage of her work. Her instruments were extremely sensitive, and the coal and iron dust that blew into the leaky shed settled on them and caused inaccurate readings.

At last, however, she was able to show Pierre a decigram of pure radium salts. (A decigram is one-tenth of a gram; a penny weighs four grams.) Marie had treated eight tons of pitchblende to get her single decigram of radium!

Now Marie could announce her new element to the world. Moreover, through her long study of radium, she determined that it had an atomic weight of 225.¹ Atomic weight is one of the most important characteristics there is about an element. Some elements are light, like hydrogen or oxygen. Some are heavier, like iron and zinc. And some are very heavy, like uranium and radium. Scientists don’t weigh atoms of an element by the pound or ounce as we do potatoes. Atoms are much too tiny. Scientists use a different unit. They refer to an atom of hydrogen, the lightest element, as having a weight of one. The weight of every other element is given as being equal to that of a certain number of hydrogen atoms.² Thus radium, whose atomic weight is 225, was 225 times heavier than hydrogen.

Throughout her work Marie had recorded her progress in the same notebooks that she used to keep her family budget. Moreover, Marie often remarked in later years that she and Pierre could have finished these four years of work in only one year if they had had a good laboratory and all the materials they needed. Working this way in borrowed laboratories without the instruments they needed “wore out our strength and delayed our accomplishment,” she wrote later.

And yet, she could also write that: “It was in this miserable old shed that the best and happiest years of our life were spent.”

Marie always remembered one particular night after she had separated radium. After she had put Irène to bed, she and Pierre walked back to the dark laboratory “just to look at it.” They stood in the darkness and looked at the little glass bottle that held the tiny bit of radium. It glowed with a bluish light.

Marie took Pierre’s hand. “Do you remember when you said you wished it would have a beautiful color?”

“Yes,” Pierre answered. There was no need to say anything else.

Marie had written her father as soon as she isolated radium salts. The old man followed every detail of her long struggle. He had always wanted a scientific career, but had not been able to have one, living as he had under Russian oppression. However, his knowledge of science made it easy for him to understand just what Marie was talking about when she wrote of her work. For Mr. Sklodowska, the next best thing to being a scientist himself was to have Marie be one.

Reading her father’s letters, Marie noticed with sadness how shaky his handwriting had become. He was, indeed, getting old. She thought she must try to return to Poland once more to see him. But this was not to be, for one day she received a letter telling of her father’s sudden illness. She got on the train for Poland, fearful and unhappy. Suppose her father died before she arrived?

When she arrived, she learned that her father had already died. For months Marie was miserable. If only her father could have lived a little longer, could have seen the excitement her radium was later to cause in the scientific world! It would have given him much pleasure.

Soon after her father’s death, Marie received another disappointment. A little girl was born to her and Pierre, but the child died soon after its birth. Marie and Pierre were very unhappy, for they had wanted another child very badly.

The same month in which Marie’s father died—May of 1902—held other disappointments for the Curies. Pierre, hearing that the chair of mineralogy had been left vacant at the Sorbonne, decided to present himself as a candidate for this opening. To be a full professor at the Sorbonne itself, instead of having to teach at one of its branch schools, had long been one of Pierre’s dreams. The job was particularly suitable to a scientist who had already done extraordinary work with crystals. Pierre had every reason to expect that he would receive this appointment, and all his scientific friends did their best to help him. In June, however, the decision of the Academy heads was published; Pierre’s hopes were dashed as he saw that the appointment had gone to another scientist.

Then Dean Paul Appell, who had long known Marie and Pierre, tried another method of seeking for Pierre the recognition that was rightfully his. Appell wanted to propose Pierre Curie to the Minister of the Academy for the decoration of the Legion of Honor, a highly coveted medal in France. But Pierre, as always, was not interested in honors. The post at the Sorbonne would have given him a chance to contribute more to science and to the welfare of his family; these were the two things he really cared about. So he wrote to Appell:

“Please be so kind as to thank the Minister and inform him that I do not feel the slightest need of being decorated, but I am in the greatest need of a laboratory.”

Thus the post Pierre had been hoping for at the Sorbonne was not to be—nor was the new laboratory he had hoped to build. He and Marie had to continue with their teaching jobs and had to keep on doing their experiments in the cold, unhealthy atmosphere of the shed.

As time went by, they gradually paid less and less attention to their own health. In order to economize and spend as much time as possible at their experiments, they skipped many meals, worked long hours, and slept very little. Pierre was often forced to take to his bed, suffering from violent pains in his legs. And Marie, who had never weighed very much, had lost fifteen pounds as a result of the four years of hard work in the shed.

Watching Pierre’s strength slipping away, and aware of her own great fatigue, Marie began to worry about the idea that death might take one or the other of them, thus separating them from their work and from each other.

One day, in a moment of forgetfulness of their mission in science, Marie said to Pierre “...if one of us disappeared...We can’t exist without each other, can we?” Pierre knew instantly what was on her mind; she was afraid that if Pierre should die, she would not have the strength to continue working without him.

“You are wrong,” said Pierre. “Whatever happens, even if one has to go on like a body without a soul, one must work just the same.”

8

The Nobel Prize

IN the months that followed, Pierre Curie succeeded in learning many things about radium’s rays. As a pure element, radium’s degree of radioactivity was found to be about two million times as strong as that of uranium!

Radium was producing heat within itself without fire and fuel, yet the radium itself did not change in appearance. Its rays could turn glass violet; they could also bore through paper. Moreover, they could also make other materials glow, which couldn’t glow by themselves. Whatever came close to radium would give off rays for a short time.

Pierre also discovered that the rays could burn terribly. They could even kill. But he found that they destroyed diseased tissues more quickly than healthy ones. Doctors, of course, were very interested in this. They began to experiment with the rays on tumors and cancers. Radium could burn these growths away so that new, healthy tissue could grow in their place. In honor of its discoverers, doctors called this new radium treatment Curietherapy.

Marie and Pierre in the laboratory

Soon scientists everywhere wanted radium to experiment with. People in many countries wanted to “make” radium. Since the Curies alone knew how to do this, they began to get letters asking how it was done.

Marie and Pierre knew that they could patent their method of producing radium. If they did so, they would have exclusive rights to radium’s manufacture throughout the world. They could easily make themselves a fortune; they could purchase a wonderful laboratory and all the equipment they wanted. Their child would inherit a great deal of money.

Or—they could give their knowledge freely to the world and ask nothing for themselves for their years of labor.

“What shall we do, Marie?” Pierre asked.

“We must publish the results of our research,” she answered immediately. “There is no other way. To patent it would be against the scientific spirit.”

Pierre agreed. He was happy with her answer.

Marie thought a minute, then said, “It would be wonderful to have a laboratory of our own. But our radium is going to be used in treating disease. It may save lives and make life better for people. It would be dishonest to patent it and make money from something sick people need.”

As Marie spoke, she knew that she was echoing what Pierre felt in his heart, too. They agreed that one of the greatest rewards of their discovery was knowing that radium would be used to cure disease.

Thus, the Curies gave their knowledge of radium freely to all who asked about it. As as result, more and more new uses for it were quickly discovered. In 1902, the French industrialist, Armet de Lisle, began the first factory production of radium. Now doctors and scientists were able to get what they needed for their experiments. But radium was still very expensive to make. It immediately became the most valuable element in the world—worth far more than gold.

In the year 1903, Marie presented the results of her research to the professors at the Sorbonne. After five years of work, she was now ready to take the examination for her doctor’s degree.

When the day arrived, her judges sat stiffly behind a heavy oak table, while Marie stood proudly before them in her new black dress. Bronya, Pierre, Dr. Curie, and some of Marie’s pupils came to listen to her examination. The judges asked Marie many questions. Finally, one of the men rose and spoke:

“The University of Paris accords you the title of doctor of physical science, with the mention 'very honorable.’”

The whole world now began to recognize the great value of the Curies’ work. France gave them several awards. England gave them one of its highest honors, the Davy medal. Since Pierre still considered gold medals useless, he gave it to little Irène to play with.

On December 10, 1903, the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm in Sweden announced that the Curies would share the Nobel prize in physics for that year with Henri Becquerel. This is one of the highest honors that can come to a scientist. Seventy thousand gold francs went with the award. At last Pierre would not have to work so much to make ends meet. Now he could devote more time to research.

The prize money also meant that Marie and Pierre could have the pleasure of giving a few gifts. They donated some money to the sanitarium Bronya and her husband had built. Marie gave one of her old teachers in Poland a trip back to France, her homeland. She gave gifts to several Polish students, Pierre’s brother, and one of her childhood friends. Finally, she sent money to Poland to support the underground movement for her country’s freedom.

But, as Pierre himself had predicted, the honor turned out to be something of a bad bargain. The Curies’ name and pictures appeared in all the newspapers: suddenly they were famous. Everyone wanted them to lecture, to come to parties, to give interviews. Someone even wanted to name a race horse after Marie.

Marie and Pierre, however, did not care to be famous. They did not want to go to parties. They wanted to be left alone to work in their laboratory and to enjoy each other’s company. During this time, Pierre wrote to a friend:

“People ask me for articles and lectures, and after a few years are passed, the very persons who make these demands will be astonished to see that we have not accomplished any work.”

And Marie complained to her brother: “People are keeping us from work as much as they can. Our life has been altogether spoiled by fame.”

9

The Widow

In April of 1906, the Curies spent Easter in the country.

They spoke of their new plans for more work on radioactivity. The Nobel prize money had made things easier for them and—despite the annoyances of being famous—they hoped to spend more time doing the research they both loved. They watched Ève, the baby, take her first steps, and Irène chase butterflies in the fields.

When the Curies returned to their home in Paris, Pierre had to attend several meetings. Hurrying back home from one of them on the rainy afternoon of April 19, Pierre must have been greatly absorbed in his thoughts, for he did not see the heavy wagon coming toward him as he crossed the wet street. When he did look up and desperately tried to step aside, it was too late. The horses reared. Pierre slipped and fell under the wheel of the wagon. His skull was crushed and he died immediately.

From that day on, Marie’s life was never the same as it had been. She had loved Pierre dearly. The two of them had lived and worked as one person. Now that he was no longer there, she felt as if part of her had died too.

Despite her grief, Marie courageously determined to carry on alone with the work she and Pierre had planned to do together. Because she remembered what Pierre had once said to her: “even if one has to go on like a body without a soul, one must work just the same.”

The government of France promptly offered Marie and her children a pension. But Marie refused it, saying, “I do not want a pension. I am young enough to earn my living and to support my children.”

Who would take over Pierre’s position at the Sorbonne? No one knew more about his work than Marie. So she was asked to take over his job teaching physics. Never before in the long history of the Sorbonne had a woman been made head of a teaching staff! Marie was determined that her lectures would be of the same high quality as those that Pierre had given.

Marie not only had to fill her job as a professor, but she had to do the work of two people at home. Most important to her was her children’s education. Dr. Curie, Pierre’s father, was a great help to Marie with the children. He had taught Irène botany and helped her plant her own garden. He read to the children and took long walks with them. On those walks he showed Irène many things about plants and animals—how seeds grew inside flowers; how mice and moles burrowed; where to look for rabbits’ nests.

Marie had very definite ideas about how Irène and Ève were to be educated. She wanted them to know literature, art, and science. But she also felt that most schools kept young children at their desks for too many hours during the day. Marie wanted Irène and Ève to spend as much time outdoors as possible. She felt each lesson should be planned so the children learn a few things well, rather than many things incompletely. But she could not find the sort of school that could meet these requirements.

Finally Marie and some of her friends at the Sorbonne decided to start such a school for their own children. Each of the parents was a well-known professor; and each decided to take a turn teaching his own special subject to the children. One day they had chemistry under a famous chemist; the next day mathematics was taught by a brilliant mathematician. Other days the children studied literature, history, modeling, drawing, and language. Marie herself taught the children physics once a week.

Every day Irène and Ève not only studied, but did some kind of manual work—they sewed, worked in their garden, learned to cook, or played on their trapeze. They hiked in all sorts of weather, and they learned music. In short, they were taught nearly everything that Marie felt would benefit them in their later lives.

Even though she kept busy every minute, Marie thought of Pierre very often. Someday she wanted to build a monument to his memory. But the monument Marie was thinking of was not simply an inscribed stone. She knew that Pierre’s dearest wish had been for a good laboratory. Since he had never gotten his wish, Marie wanted to build the laboratory Pierre had wanted and dedicate it to his memory. If this dream ever came true, she wanted young people interested in science to do research in radioactivity at the laboratory. In this way, she hoped to be able to help other young scientists escape the hardships she and Pierre had had to work under. Even in her grief, Marie thought of being useful to science.

One of the difficult decisions Marie had to make after Pierre’s death was what to do with the gram of radium that she and Pierre had managed to isolate in the laboratory. The radium was worth a million gold francs. Dr. Curie and most of the other members of the family thought that the radium should be sold. Marie knew that the money from such a sale would assure her children of a comfortable life, for now there was no one but herself to support them.

Ought she to sell the radium? Marie could not bring herself to answer yes—no matter how difficult life might be for her. Moreover, it seemed right to her that Irène and Ève should work and earn their own living when they were grown. Besides, she did not believe her children would need or want great wealth. As for now, she was quite capable of earning her own and her children’s living.

Thus, Marie—never able to think of science in terms of personal profit—decided to give the radium to her laboratory, where it would be used in research. Perhaps that very bit of radium would be used for some purpose that would benefit humanity!

At the Sorbonne, Marie continued research with her elements. In 1907, she did something that had never been done before and has seldom been done since. She produced some radium in the form of shining metal. Until that time, the element had usually been made in the form of a salt. Marie worked with polonium, too, but it proved to be a very unstable element and, compared to radium, was of little scientific value. However, she did learn how to produce helium gas with polonium’s radiation.

Another important thing Marie did was to find a very accurate way to measure radium and other radioactive elements. The success of Curietherapy, for example, depended on these elements being measured exactly. Marie’s method was to measure the amount of radium by the rays it gave off, instead of measuring the weight of the element. Thus, she set up a new and reliable standard by which a scientist anywhere in the world could measure his radium.

In the year 1907, Andrew Carnegie, the American financier, gave Marie’s laboratory a gift of money. Mr. Carnegie told her she was to have the same amount each year. Marie used this money to give scholarships to promising young science students. One of the students who won a scholarship was Maurice Curie, son of Jacques Curie, Pierre’s brother. Marie had always been fond of the young man, and was especially pleased that he wanted to work in her laboratory. She was even more pleased that he turned out to be one of her most gifted students.

In 1908, Marie began giving a course in radioactivity at the Sorbonne—the first course on that subject ever given anywhere. That same year she also found time to collect and edit all Pierre’s work. Later this was published in a 600-page book called The Works of Pierre Curie.

In 1910, the Minister of France wanted to award Marie the Legion of Honor. This was the same award Pierre had refused several years before; Marie herself had come to feel as her husband had about such honors, so she declined it. Later some of her friends wanted her to be a member of the Academy of Science, as Pierre had been. Membership in the Academy was one of the few honors Pierre had accepted, and thus Marie decided to present herself for election to that body. A woman, however, had never been elected to the Academy before, and furious arguments broke out among the members. “Women cannot be part of the Institute of France,” thundered one member indignantly. Other men agreed with him. But some of the wiser members disagreed.

When the day of election finally arrived, Marie lost the election by one vote. So, even though she was France’s greatest scientist, she was not allowed to join the Academy because of her sex!

During the same year, 1910, Pierre’s father died. Marie had relied on him to cheer her up after Pierre’s death; Irène and Ève, too, had depended on him for many kindnesses. The Curie home had less warmth and gaiety after he was gone and the children never felt as close to any of their governesses as they had to their grandfather.

In the year 1911 Marie was again awarded the Nobel prize—this time in chemistry. Her preparation of metallic radium and the discovery of the two new elements—radium and polonium—brought her the honors. No one—man or woman—has since received this prize twice. Moreover, Marie’s achievement was even more astonishing, because she had won it in two different fields—physics and chemistry.

Marie had to make a speech before the Swedish Academy of Sciences when she went to Sweden to accept the prize. She felt that this, as well as the first Nobel prize, had been won by both she and Pierre. In this acceptance speech, she said:

“I wish to recall that the discovery of radium and that of polonium were made by Pierre Curie in common with me. We also owe to Pierre Curie, in the domain of radioactivity, some fundamental studies which he carried out either alone or in common with me or in collaboration with his pupils.

“The chemical work which had as its aim the isolation of radium in the state of pure salt and its characterization as a new element was carried out especially by me, but is intimately linked with the work in common. I therefore believe I shall interpret exactly the Academy’s thought in admitting that the high distinction bestowed upon me...thus constitutes homage to the memory of Pierre Curie.”

Irène accompanied her famous mother to receive the Nobel prize in Stockholm. Full of pride, she watched her speak before the great assembly of learned people. The little girl was only fourteen, but she already knew that she wanted to devote her life to science, exactly as her parents had done. Through her mother’s teaching and guidance she was getting as fine a scientific education as she could get anywhere in the world. Already the girl was showing brilliance in her studies, especially in science.

In 1912, something else happened that greatly excited Marie. Her native Poland wanted to set up a laboratory for research in radioactivity, and Marie was asked to be the head of it. She agreed to organize the research and direct it from Paris. When the program was set up, Marie went to Warsaw to confer with the laboratory authorities. She was touched by the enthusiastic welcome her native city gave her.

Everywhere Marie went she was greeted by cheering Polish voices. The fact that the Russian officials ignored her presence only made Marie’s visit pleasanter. She still wished, above all things, for Poland’s eventual freedom. One of her greatest satisfactions was knowing that her discoveries were being used to help Polish people. In Paris, meanwhile, another laboratory for the study of radioactivity was being built. It was the one Marie had wanted to build as a monument to Pierre. Money to help build the laboratory was being given by the Pasteur Institute and the Sorbonne. It was to be called the “Institute of Radium,” and would consist of two main branches—one for physics experiments, and the other for biological experiments. In the physics laboratory the properties of the radioactive elements would be studied. In the biology department, scientists would search for new ways to use these elements in medicine and biology.

Marie helped plan the rooms and where the equipment would go. She also planted the garden around the building herself. She wanted Pierre’s laboratory to be as beautiful and perfect as she could make it. In July of 1914, the laboratory was finished.

During the building of the Institute, the strain of Marie’s busy life began to take its toll on her. She became ill and was taken to the hospital; her worried relatives were told she might die. Marie had to have a kidney operation; however, in the same courageous way she conquered everything else, she conquered her illness. Although she was weak for a long time, she returned to her laboratory almost as soon as she could get up again.

10

Marie Curie’s Part in World War I

Before Marie could move her instruments into the Institute of Radium and begin work, World War I broke out. All her workers joined the army, which was then massing on the French border against the German attackers.

Even though Marie still was not completely well, she determined to do something to help her adopted country. When Paris was threatened by invasion, she took her Institute’s valuable radium supply to a safe hiding place. It was only one gram of radium, but it was all there was in France.

The French government asked all citizens to buy war bonds, for a great deal of money was needed for weapons to fight a war that raged all over Europe. Marie decided upon a contribution of her own.

She wrote to her daughter Irène, living in Brittany, that she had decided to give the Nobel prize money to the French government. “Only, I have no illusions,” she wrote—“this money will probably be lost. I don’t want to commit such ‘nonsense,’ therefore, unless you approve.”

“Of course we should give it,” Irène wrote back immediately. “It wouldn’t do us much good if France were defeated.”

So Marie’s Nobel prize money was given to help France mobilize. True to her prediction, it was never repaid. Yet as Marie often said, losing money didn’t bother her. All one really needed to worry about, she was fond of saying, was “losing one’s honor.”

Marie wondered what else she could do to help the war effort. She knew that doctors had used X-rays to look inside the body. With the help of those rays they could see where bones were broken, or where a bullet or a piece of shell was lodged. Thus doctors could more easily mend the bones or remove the bullets. They could also look at internal injuries with the rays and see how fast they were healing.

Marie knew that X-rays had not been used in warfare before, but she was convinced that their use would give wounded men a greater chance to recover. Marie knew there were only a few hospitals in France with X-ray equipment; nevertheless, she decided to gather as much of the equipment as she could and then try to find a way to get the X-ray apparatus to hospital units near the front. This created another problem, however, for the field of battle was constantly changing, and the X-ray apparatus would have to be easily moved about. Marie finally solved this difficulty by installing X-ray units in automobiles! Soon she had managed to outfit twenty cars in this way. The electric current that ran the X-ray equipment itself came from a dynamo that worked off the car’s engine. These automobiles could maneuver quickly to any spot at the front, and wounded men could be examined immediately as they came from the battlefield. Many deaths were thus prevented by such early examination.

However, Marie’s war work was not finished with setting up the X-ray cars. There were few people who could operate the X-ray units. So she set up a school to train people in radiology, the science of applying X-rays for the diagnosis and cure of wounds and disease. Irène was a great help to her in this work. The girl took nurse’s training and learned to use the X-ray methods.

Since there was a shortage of people to operate the “radiological cars,” as they were called, Marie often drove one to the front herself. Irène went with her and helped give examinations to the wounded men. Often they had to train young doctors in the use of the equipment. Many had never seen it before; some were even suspicious of the new equipment. At the end of the war, Irène Curie was given a medal by the French government—a great honor for such a young girl.

Marie also installed two hundred X-ray stations in various hospitals. These and her twenty cars succeeded in treating over a million wounded. She had also trained one hundred and fifty radiology nurses. And she still had time to see that Curietherapy with radium was available to the soldiers who needed it.

Under the terrible wartime conditions, both X-rays and Curietherapy answered great needs. These new discoveries—so little known or tested before the war—were used in many bold new ways to save human lives. In peacetime such bold chances could not have been taken without careful preliminary experimentation. But in wartime, it was often necessary to take the risks. If a man was going to die anyway, it was better to try anything that might give him a chance to live.

At last, on November 11, 1918, the Armistice was declared—the war was over! Marie found that she did not have a flag to hang in front of the Institute, so she bought three pieces of cloth—one red, one white, and one blue—and quickly sewed them together.

With the Armistice came great joy for Marie—Poland was set free at last, after 150 years of foreign domination. Marie’s lifelong dream had come true. Happily she wrote to her brother:

“So now we, ‘born in servitude and chained since birth,’ have seen that resurrection of our country which has been our dream. We did not hope to live in this moment ourselves; we thought it might not even be given to our children to see it—and it is here!”

Now that the war was over, Marie again took up her work at the Institute in earnest. Her situation now, however, was not as bright as it had been. Most of her savings had gone to the government and she had no hopes of being repaid. Her health was not good, yet she must work as a professor in addition to directing the Institute’s activities. Her salary was all she and her children had to live on. But there was one consolation—Irène had grown to be a very close and understanding companion for her mother. Her knowledge of science was surprising for a young girl, and her wartime experience had made her more mature.

Irène wanted more than anything else to work with her mother in the laboratory, so Marie made her an assistant. She also kept up her studies at the Sorbonne, and planned to do research in radioactivity when she finished.

While Marie’s oldest daughter was a thoughtful, quiet girl, her second daughter, Ève, was gay and full of mischief. Because she was so young, she had been sent away from Paris during the war. The conflict had scarcely affected her. In contrast to Irène, who had always known she wanted to be a scientist, Ève hadn’t the slightest idea of what she would like to do. One day she wanted to be a concert pianist, another she wanted to be a writer, on a third she thought she would become a dancer. The house was likely to echo with music at the oddest hours as Ève practiced on her piano.

Although she was constantly being asked, Marie rarely gave interviews to anyone. In 1920, however, she agreed to see a woman reporter from the United States. This woman, Mrs. William Brown Maloney, had waited for years to get an interview with Marie. She told Marie that American women were interested in knowing about her work. The two began to discuss America. How rich the country was—already it had fifty grams of radium!

Mrs. Maloney asked how much France had.

“My laboratory has hardly more than a gram,” Marie answered.

She explained to Mrs. Maloney that, although she needed more radium to continue her work, she could not afford to buy any more for she had given nearly all her money toward France’s war effort. Radium was the most expensive thing in the world. To get another gram of it, Marie would have to pay $100,000. It was impossible.

Mrs. Maloney wanted to do something to help Marie in her work. She knew that Marie was the ideal of women everywhere; she had proved that women could be good wives and mothers and still serve humanity. Why couldn’t all the women in America band together and give Marie a gram of radium?

The American reporter decided to organize a drive when she returned to America. Mrs. Maloney found that women all over the United States were happy to have a way to tell Marie how much they respected her work. The rich, the poor, the old, the young—women from all walks of life gave money. In less than a year Mrs. Maloney wrote Marie that “the money has been found; the radium is yours.”

Marie and her two daughters went to the United States to receive the gift. On May 20, 1921, the President of the United States, Warren G. Harding, presented it to her personally. When the title to the precious gram of radium was given to Marie, she saw that it made her the sole owner of it. She insisted the paper be rewritten—the radium must legally belong to her laboratory, not to herself. Again she repeated the words she had spoken so often before: “Radium must belong to science.”

Later Marie wrote:

“I returned to France with a feeling of gratitude for the precious gift from the American women, and with a feeling of affection for their great country tied with ours by a mutual sympathy, which gives confidence in a peaceful future for humanity.”

11

Riches Untold

After her first trip to the United States, Marie found she was being asked again and again to visit other countries. Universities everywhere wanted to give her honorary degrees. Scientific societies begged her to come and speak. She was asked to give advice when institutes for radioactivity were set up in other countries. She visited Brazil, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Spain, England. On some of these trips, Irène and Ève accompanied her.

In 1922, Marie was elected to the French Academy of Medicine—the first woman to be elected to this distinguished body. That same year she also accepted a position with the Council of the League of Nations, the organization dedicated to keeping peace after World War I. A great humanitarian and a great respecter of human life, Marie hoped the League of Nations could prevent the coming of another war by promoting understanding between nations. Marie was also a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.

During the time that she was working with these groups, Marie still managed to serve science. She gained worldwide support for the setting up of an international bibliography of scientific publications. Using this bibliography—or complete list relating to scientific subjects—a worker could see just what had been published anywhere in the world on any scientific subject. She also worked to get all countries to accept the same scientific symbols and terms.

Finally Marie helped set up a series of international scientific scholarships. Remembering her own difficult student days, Marie always felt it was a loss to the whole world when a potential scientist was unable to continue his schooling for lack of money. And together with all these many projects, Marie still continued to direct all the work at the Institute of Radium.

In 1923, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of radium was celebrated. The French government decided to show its gratitude to Marie Curie for her many contributions to her adopted country. The Parliament unanimously passed a bill giving Marie an annual pension. Hela, Bronya, and Joseph came to the celebration. Crowds applauded Marie as if she were a prima donna. But the graying woman in the shabby black dress—who did not enjoy being famous at all— suffered from stage fright and thanked the Parliament in a voice that trembled.

As anyone would expect who knew her, Marie Curie did not use the pension to make her own life more comfortable. This would have been against her nature. Instead, most of it went to benefit various scientific causes, to set up scholarships, or to buy equipment for her laboratory. It was of no use that Irène and Ève pleaded with their mother to take care of her health, to rest oftener and enjoy herself a little more. This great woman’s work was her only pleasure and the laboratory continued to give her the deepest happiness she knew.

Next, Marie set out to turn still another dream into reality. She wanted a truly great radium institute to be established in Poland. There must be fine, well-equipped laboratories in a new building where the program she had set up in 1912 could be carried out and expanded. Marie was determined to give this to her native country. But the same question that had plagued Marie all her life plagued her again: where was the money to come from?

Poland, newly free from the yoke of Russian oppression, was a poor country. Marie, overburdened with all her other duties, now added another—that of fund raiser for Poland’s radium institute. Her sister Bronya helped, too. She, together with Marie, felt that this would be a wonderful gift to give Poland, and both sisters personally gave a large part of their own modest savings to the fund.

Posters were put up all over Poland, asking for contributions. Post cards were sent bearing Marie’s words: “My most ardent desire is the creation of an institute of radium in Warsaw.”

Finally, in 1925, Marie went to Warsaw to lay the cornerstone of the new building. The whole country paid tribute to the shy, shabbily dressed, now aging scientist. Polish universities gave her honorary degrees, and cities and societies also honored her.

On each trip back to Poland, Marie felt herself once again the passionate, determined student who had left her native country nearly thirty years before.

Slowly the walls of the institute grew. Finally all that was needed was a stock of radium to begin cancer treatment and experimentation: this would be the greatest expense of all. Where could Marie turn? She remembered her American friend Mrs. Maloney and how enthusiastically the United States had given her radium once before when she was in need.

Marie wrote Mrs. Maloney. Would it be possible for the United States to help her again? No sooner was the question asked than the gallant American woman went to work. She admired nothing more than a humane cause and wrote that she would help Marie. So the money for a second gram of radium was collected in the United States, and once again Marie traveled across the Atlantic to receive the gift and to thank America on behalf of Poland. This time it was President Herbert Hoover who made the presentation.

Finally on May 29, 1932, a ceremony officially opened the institute. Every piece of laboratory equipment had been personally inspected by Marie. When the famous woman scientist left Poland, it was with a feeling of deep satisfaction. This was her last trip to her native country. It could not have been a more satisfying one.

12

Old Age

Marie personally selected all the students who worked in the Radium Institute in Paris, and supervised the work of each one close by. Using her own money, she often gave scholarships to poor students. Each year there was a student from Poland in the laboratory; Marie saw to that. But of all the students in her laboratory, Marie was happiest to see that her own Irène was one of the most brilliant. To the aging woman it was a great comfort to have this daughter, who was so much like Pierre, always at her side.

In 1926, Irène told her mother and sister that she had become engaged. She was going to marry Frédéric Joliot, one of her mother’s students who worked at the Radium Institute. Frédéric was so proud to be joining the Curie family that he added Irène’s last name to his own. After their marriage, the young couple were known as Madame and Monsieur Joliot-Curie.

Irène and Frédéric were both interested in carrying on the work with radioactivity that Marie and Pierre had begun. They were always together in the laboratory, just as Irène’s parents had been.

At first Marie was sad when Irène married Frédéric. She was afraid she would be losing her daughter’s companionship and help. Soon, however, she realized that she now had two companions instead of just one. Indeed, she found she could discuss her problems freely in the laboratory with these two young scientists.

The young couple began coming to lunch several times a week. At these times Ève, Marie’s younger daughter, was likely to feel a little awed and left out of the conversation, for it was full of scientific terms that the artistic young girl didn’t understand.

Sometimes Marie gave tea parties at the institute. These little parties were given whenever one of the students received a degree or had won a prize. Tea would be served in laboratory beakers, sugar came out of a brown chemical bottle, and stirring rods took the place of spoons. Informal though they were, the students always loved Marie’s parties.

As time went on, Marie found she depended on Irène and Frédéric more and more. Her health was growing worse. Yet no matter how badly she felt, she still tried to come to the laboratory. Even when she was past sixty, Marie still worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day.

Marie devoted her later years more and more to teaching and directing her laboratory than to research. Many prominent scientists studied there under her and benefited from her inspired teaching.

After long hours in the laboratory, Marie wrote articles and books, and lectured at the Sorbonne. Although she lectured there for years, Marie never got over the feeling of stage fright that gripped her each time she entered the big lecture hall.

In 1920 doctors told Marie that she would go blind if she did not have an operation to remove cataracts from both her eyes. Her hearing, too, began to get worse. She seemed to be tired all the time. But Marie did not want her coworkers in the laboratory to know how ill she was, nor did she want anyone to do favors for her—especially if it meant taking time away from an experiment. Marie pretended she could see perfectly well, and developed little ways to keep up the pretense of perfect health in front of her coworkers.

When the operation on her eyes was finally performed in 1923, everything did not go as well as the doctors had hoped. A year later, it was necessary that she have two more operations, and in 1930, a fourth. Nor did Marie rest her eyes after the operations for the length of time the doctors advised—she was back in the laboratory almost as soon as the bandages were removed. Indeed, Marie Curie was a woman who did not know how to rest—who never thought of retiring.

In 1927 she wrote her sister Bronya:

“Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don’t know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.”

Even now, in old age, haunted by nearly constant illness, success in the laboratory could make Marie as gay and sparkling as she had been when she was a girl. But failure in an experiment could just as easily plunge her into the deepest despair. The wonder was that through these difficult years she still managed to carry on not only her professional duties, but also devote time to such things as the Institute in Warsaw.

Meanwhile, Marie had become a grandmother. Hélène, Irène’s little daughter, always brought a smile to Marie’s face, no matter how tired she was. She often went out of her way to visit the park where the child and her nurse would be playing.

Like her mother before her, Irène found ways to manage her home and the care of her child so that she could continue her work in the laboratory. Frédéric always worked with her at his side, just as Pierre had worked with Marie.

Marie often went out of her way to visit her granddaughter in the park

Irène and Frédéric began to concentrate their work more and more in the field of nuclear physics. They became interested in the English scientist Soddy’s most recent work for which he had won the Nobel prize in 1921. Until this time scientists had believed that all atoms of a particular element were exactly alike; that they looked and combined with other atoms in the same way, and that their atomic weights were equal. Soddy found, however, that this was not true. There could be several different forms of the same element. Sometimes the difference was found to be in their atomic weights. In other cases, some forms of an element are radioactive while others are not. Soddy called these different forms of the same element “isotopes.” He called the radioactive isotopes “radioisotopes.”

Scientists found that the radioisotopes could be very useful. A little of a radioisotope of an element could be mixed into a large quantity of its usual form, and then the whole batch was “tagged”—identified—by the rays given off by the radioisotope’s atoms. Unfortunately, only a few elements had natural radioisotopes. But scientists had begun to ask themselves this question: Why not find a way to produce radioisotopes of the elements most often found in living plant and animal tissue? Then samples of these elements could be tagged and fed to plants and animals. The elements could then be traced by their rays as they spread through the living tissue. If this were possible, science could learn much more about what went on in living cells.

Irène and Frédéric knew that radiations of radium were of little use in tracing life processes since radium is not a very important element in either animal or plant cells. But other elements like iron, iodine, phosphorus, and sulfur are quite frequently found in living cells. True, these elements did not have radioisotopes, yet both radioactive and stable types of atoms are made up of the same particles—protons, neutrons, and electrons. If there were only a way to make stable elements become radioactive and start throwing out some of these particles! Many scientists had worked on this problem, but so far none had found a way to solve it.

Irène and Frédéric also thought about this problem. They began to work on the transmutation of atoms; that is, changing one chemical element into another. The two English scientists, Rutherford and Soddy, had already discovered that this happened spontaneously in nature. Also, the young Joliot-Curies had read that in 1919 Rutherford had succeeded in making one element into another in the laboratory. He had taken alpha particles (helium atoms from radium) and used them as highspeed bullets. He shot them at atoms of nitrogen gas. The nitrogen atom’s core trapped an alpha particle and temporarily became an isotope of fluorine. Then the fluorine broke up into an isotope of oxygen and hydrogen. Thus Rutherford had made oxygen and hydrogen out of helium and nitrogen.

Other scientists in the late 20’s and early 30’s made machines that could hurl the atomic bullets—electrons or protons—at tremendous speeds. The Joliot-Curies used some of these machines in their experiments. In 1934 they bombarded aluminum atoms, using alpha particles as atomic bullets. From this they produced a radioactive isotope of phosphorus that had never been found in nature. The Joliot-Curies had succeeded in solving the problem—they had made artificial isotopes. Soon they went on to make others.

Marie was very proud of Irène and Frédéric’s accomplishments. When she spoke to a friend of their work she said: “We are back in the fine days of the old laboratory.”

Marie was convinced that, with their discovery of artificial radioisotopes, Irène and Frédéric would receive the Nobel prize.

Now, however, Marie’s mind was distracted from this fascinating new work by another bout of illness. This time the doctors could not tell exactly what was wrong with Marie. They all agreed that she was overworked, but beyond that they could not agree on a diagnosis. All they knew was that the famous scientist ran a continual fever, that she suffered from weakness and chills, and that she was anemic. Finally, the baffled physicians decided that Marie should have a change of climate.

Marie was sent to the mountains, but the trip only served to weaken her further. Here another specialist diagnosed Marie’s condition as pernicious anemia, a rare blood disease, in which there is interference with the body’s ability to absorb certain substances it needs to make blood cells. Even if these substances are present in the victim’s food, “something” keeps them from being used. What that “something” was in Marie’s case, no one knew. Also, there was no known cure for pernicious anemia.

Though she steadily lost strength, Marie refused to think of dying. She told her associates at the laboratory that she would soon return. Again she told Ève, her daughter, that she was certain Irène and Frédéric would be awarded the Nobel prize for their discovery of artificial radioactivity.

But Marie was not to live to see this come to be. Although the courageous woman scientist refused to recognize death, death claimed her nevertheless.

Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934 in Savoy, France. Only after her death did the doctors finally discover what had caused her to have pernicious anemia. That disease, they agreed, was probably the result of her long years of work with, and handling of, radioactive elements. In her early work with these elements, Marie did not know how dangerous their radiation could be. Nor in the later years of experimentation, had she bothered much about using the lead shields that she insisted her students wear for protection against radiation. Thus, the same rays that could save lives when carefully used, had taken Marie’s life. And yet that life had been a long one—one of the most remarkably useful ones the world has ever known.

13

Irène and Frédéric

True to Marie’s prediction, Irène and Frédéric received the Nobel Prize in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioisotopes. Never before have two generations of the same family been awarded that prize.

Other physicists studied the Joliot-Curies’ methods. More and more powerful atom-smashing machines were developed and scientists have since been able to produce radioisotopes of nearly every element.

Irène and Frédéric’s work aided the British physicist, James Chadwick, in his discovery of the neutron, which is one of the building blocks of the atom. For this work, Professor Chadwick himself received the Nobel Prize in 1935.

In 1936 Irène served as Under Secretary of State for Scientific Research in France. This was only the beginning of the many honors and positions that were to come to this brilliant daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie. In 1939 she was awarded the French Legion of Honor. And Frédéric worked on the development of the atomic bomb, which was first used in World War II—the most devastating use to which radioactivity has been put. This weapon developed from the earlier work in transmutation of atoms. Scientists knew that if a heavy atom like that of uranium could be broken up, a huge amount of energy would be released. In 1939 physicists found that uranium atoms could be broken into two pieces by striking them with neutrons. Other neutrons from inside the broken atom were released as this happened. These neutrons broke other atoms up. This process is called fission. It is the basis of atomic power. One pound of uranium broken up in this way gives one million times as much energy as can be gotten by burning one pound of coal. When scientists succeeded in making the atomic bomb, they proved that matter can be made to disappear and to give energy and heat in its place.

Irène and Frédéric remained in France during the German occupation of World War II, even though they could have escaped. They did not want to desert France as long as they felt there was something they could do to help the war effort. Both of these brave people worked closely with the French underground throughout the war.

After the war Irène and Frédéric helped found the French Atomic Energy Commission. Irène remained a member of the Commission until 1951, when she became director of the Institute of Radium, as her mother had before her. Frédéric was removed from the Commission in 1950, for he happened to be a member of the Communist party.

In 1947, Irène was named a professor at the Sorbonne.

In addition to teaching, directing the institute, managing her home, and many other tasks, she was also a prolific author. She wrote—sometimes with Frédéric, sometimes alone—fifty-four books on scientific subjects.

In 1956 Irène died from a blood disease, just as her mother had. Doctors said her illness was leukemia, for which there is so far no known cure. All the causes of leukemia are not known, but it is positively known that overexposure to radioactive substances can cause it. Doctors thought this was what happened to Irène. She and her mother were only two of a great number of scientists who have died from the effects of radioactivity.

Today more is known about how to protect people who handle radioactive materials. Workers are shielded by thick layers of lead or concrete, which the rays cannot penetrate. Samples of the workers’ blood are periodically tested to see if the rays have hurt them, for blood shows radioactive damage before many of the bodily tissues do. Instruments like the Geiger counter are constantly kept near containers holding radioactive substances because such devices will quickly show whether any radioactivity is escaping.

15

The Joliot-Curies and Radioisotopes

The fission process that Frédéric Joliot-Curie helped develop is being used today in many constructive, rather than destructive, ways. The heat given off by the process can be harnessed and used to generate steam. The steam can then drive engines and turbines for many useful purposes. Atomic fission is also used to provide an energy source to propel atomic submarines. Scientists use similar energy sources to provide power for industry.

But of all the contributions to science that the Curies and Joliot-Curies made, the most exciting is probably artificial radioisotopes. Scientists have been able to learn a great deal about the life processes of animals and plants by means of them. They have many uses in medicine, geology, physics, industry, biology, botany, and other sciences.

Today radioisotopes are produced in nuclear reactors or atomic piles where the fission process takes place. As materials are made for military use, the radioisotopes are made as a by-product of the process.

In industry, one of the most interesting uses of radioisotopes is in the radiation thickness gauge. This instrument makes it possible to measure the thickness and weight of different materials as they are being made. The gauge works on a very simple principle. Radiations from a small amount of a radioisotope are beamed through the material to be measured. On the other side of the material is a receiving device which measures the amount of radiation that gets through. This amount will depend on the material’s thickness. Instruments connected to the receiving device show how much of the radiation gets through the material. Thus, a worker can tell the material’s thickness. The device is so sensitive that it will detect variations in thickness as small as a ten-thousandth of an inch.

A study of radioisotopes has also helped scientists develop a way to tell the age of fossils and other ancient materials. The method is called radiocarbon dating. It works this way. All living things—plants and animals alike—contain the element carbon. A few of the carbon atoms in all living things are radioactive; that is, their cores, or nuclei, disintegrate sooner or later. Radioactive carbon atoms continue to exist in animals and plants for thousands of years after they have died. If a scientist wants to know how old a piece of such ancient material is, he carefully measures its radioactivity. By measuring the rate at which the radiocarbon atoms in the sample decay, the time that has passed since its death can be estimated.

In addition, radiocarbon dating has been used to tell the age of articles found in ancient villages. This method is most accurate when it is used on samples up to 5,000 years old. But it can also be used on material that is as much as 45,000 years old. *

Scientists are now using gamma rays from a radioactive element to sterilize foods and preserve them. In large doses, the gamma rays are deadly to all forms of life. Smaller doses can be used to kill only certain living things that are harmful to man, such as molds, bacteria, and yeasts that cause food to spoil.

In medicine, radioisotopes are replacing radium in treating tumors and cancers. When a radioisotope is put into the body of a person suffering from cancer, it will seek out the sick cells and destroy them. Since the diseased tissue absorbs more of the radioisotope than healthy tissue, they can help a doctor tell where tumors or cancers are located. First the doctor injects the radioisotope into the patient, or gives it to him to take as an “atomic cocktail.” After the cancer or tumor has had time to absorb the radioisotope, the doctor can find it by using a Geiger counter. Moreover, the radioactivity does not go beyond the diseased tissue to harm nearby healthy tissues. Once the doctor knows where the cancer is, he can inject larger amounts of the radioisotope to destroy it.

Radioisotopes can also be used to tell whether an injured person needs a blood transfusion. Sometimes doctors do not know how much blood is left in the body of an injured person. A small sample of blood is taken. Then, after separating the red blood cells from the serum of the blood, the doctor mixes a small amount of radioactive iodine in it. He then measures the amount of radiation in this sample of serum and injects it into the patient’s blood. In a few minutes the radioactive sample is mixed in the blood throughout the patient’s body. Then the doctor takes another sample of blood from the patient. He measures the amount of radiation in this sample, too. By comparing the readings of the two samples, he can calculate how much blood is left in the patient’s body, and whether or not he needs a transfusion.

In addition, radioisotopes are used to tell if a patient has an ulcer in his digestive tract. First, some of his red cells are made radioactive and then re-injected into the patient’s blood stream. The radioactivity of his blood is measured every day. It will lessen as the red blood cells are destroyed. The usual life span of a red blood cell is about thirty days. If the radioactivity decreases much more rapidly than this, the doctor knows the patient is losing blood through an ulcer.

Since radioisotopes are just as good chemically as the stable forms of elements, body and plant tissues accept them just as well. For this reason, radioisotopes can be used to measure what doctors call the basic metabolic rate in a person’s body, or how fast the body builds back cells which have worn out, and how fast a tired body regains its energy. The most efficient way to do this is to give the patient some radioactive isotope and then measure how fast the body picks it up and spreads it throughout the tissues. Very delicate machines are used to measure the radioactivity.

It is impossible to think of the advances science has made in understanding and controlling the world we live in without thinking of the discoveries of Marie and Pierre Curie and the Joliot-Curies. All scientists remember them with humility and look to their lives for inspiration. When scientists at the University of Chicago discovered a new radioactive element in 1944, they named it curium after Pierre and Marie. This is probably the only tribute the Curies would have wanted.

Index

Academy of Science, French

Academy of Sciences, Stockholm

Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Actinium, discovery of

Alpha rays

Appell, Paul

Archaeology, radiocarbon dating in

Atom bomb

Atomic fission. See Fission

Atomic power

uses of

Atomic weight, defined

Atoms:

make-up of

transmutation of

Austrian Academy of Sciences

Becquerel, Henri

Beta rays

Biology, use of radioactivity in

Blood loss, detection of, through radioisotopes

Cancer, treatment of: 

with radioisotopes

with radium

Carnegie, Andrew

Chadwick, James

Chalcocite

Crystallization, fractional

Crystals, Pierre Curie’s studies of

Curie, Eve 

Curie, Irene. See Joliot-Curie

Curie, Jacques

discoveries and inventions of

Curie, Marie:

birth of

childhood of

children of

death of

decides for science

degrees

discovers radium and polonium

first romance of

gains international fame

as governess

honors awarded to

ill health of

in old age

illness of

international efforts of

laboratories of

last visit of, to Poland

marriage of

meets Pierre Curie

patriotism of

as private tutor

research of, on radioactivity

schooling of

student at Sorbonne

teaching jobs of

trips of, to foreign countries

visits the U.S.

during World War I

writings of

Curie, Maurice

Curie, Pierre:

childhood of

children of

death of

degrees of

is denied professorship atSorbonne

discoveries of:

Curie’s law

piezoelectricity

principle of symmetry

about radiation of radium

education of

gains international fame

honors awarded to

ill health of

Institute of Radium dedicated to

inventions of:

“Curie balance”

electrometer

joins wife in research on

radioactivity

marriage of

meets Marie Sklodowska

teaching jobs of

Curie, Pierre, The Works of

Curie, Dr. (Pierre’s father)

“Curie balance”

Curie’s law

Curie point,

Curie unit

Curietherapy

Curium, discovery of

Davey medal

Debierne, Andre

Dluski, Bronya. See Sklodowska, Bronya

Dluski, Casimir

Electrometer, invention of

Fission, nuclear, uses of 

“Floating University,” Warsaw

Food sterilization by gamma rays

Fractional crystallization

French Academy of Medicine

French Academy of Science

French Atomic Energy Commission

Gamma rays

Geology, dating methods in:

through radioisotopes

through radium

Harding, Warren G.

Helium gas

Hoover, Herbert

Hydrogen Hypothesis, defined

Industry:

use of radioisotopes in

use of radium in

Institute of France. See French Academy of Science

Institute of Radium, Paris  

gift of radium to, by U.S. women

Institute of Radium, Warsaw

Intellectual Cooperation

International Committee on

International efforts of Marie Curie 

Isotope, defined

Joliot-Curie, Frederic: 

honors awarded to

Joliot-Curie, Frederic 

marriage of

member of Communist Party

research of, on radioisotopes

work of, on atomic fission

during World War II

Joliot-Curie, Helene

Joliot-Curie, Irene

birth of

death of

education of

honors awarded to

marriage of

professor at Sorbonne

research of, on radioisotopes

during World War I

during World War II

writings of

Kelvin, Lord

Kovalski, Dr.

League of Nations

Legion of Honor award

Lippmann, Professor

Lisle, Armet de

Luminous paint

Magnetism, Pierre Curie’s research on

Maloney

Mrs. William Brown

Medicine:

use of radioisotopes in

use of radium in

 Metabolic rate, measuring

Neutron, discovery of

Nobel prize

for Henri Becquerel

for James Chadwick

for Marie Curie

for Marie and Pierre Curie

for the Joliot-Curies

for Frederick Soddy

Nuclear fission. See Fission

Nuclear physics

Paderewski, Ignace Jan

Pasteur Institute

Piezoelectricity

Pitchblende:

analyzation of, by the Curies

composition of, 

radioactivity of

Plante prize,

Poland:

division of, among Austria, Germany and Russia

education in, under Russian rule

Institute of Radium of

Marie Curie’s last visit to

regains independence

Russian-ruled part of

sets up laboratory for research in radioactivity

Polonium

Radiation, radioactive

medical uses of 

protection against 

Radiation thickness gauge

Radioactivity:

Becquerel’s discovery of

coining of term

the Curies’ research on

Marie Curie becomes interested in

uses of (see also Radioisotopes, uses of, Radium, uses of) 

Radiocarbon dating

Radioelements

measuring of

Radiograph

Radioisotopes:

artificial, discovery of

defined,

production of  

uses of:

in archaeology

in biology

in geology

in industry

in medicine

Radiology, defined

Radium:

cost of 

discovery of

industrial production of

isolation of 

method of measuring of

properties of

radiation of 

radioactivity of

uses of:

in geology  

in industrial tests

in luminous paint

in medicine

Rays, different kinds of

Russia, oppression of Poland

Rutherford, Ernest

Savoy, France

Sceaux, France

School of Physics and Chemistry, Paris

Science, international, Marie Curie’s efforts for

Sklodowska, Bronya (sister)

marriage of

sanatorium of, in Poland

studies in Paris

Sklodowska, Hela (sister)

Sklodowska, Joseph (brother)

Sklodowska, Manya. See Curie, Marie 

Sklodowska, Zosia (sister) 

 Sklodowska, Mr. (father)

Sklodowska, Mrs. (mother)

Sklodowska family 

Society for Encouragement of National Industry

Soddy, Frederick

Sorbonne

Swedish Academy of Sciences

Symmetry, principle of, in physics

Thorium

Transmutation, of atoms

Ulcer detection through radioisotopes

United States

University of Chicago

Uranite

Uranium:

Marie Curie’s research on

nuclear fission of

radioactivity of:

compared with radium

discovery of

Warsaw:

Institute of Radium in

Marie Curie organizes laboratory in

under Russian rule 

 Works of Pierre Curie, The

World War I

World War II

X-rays

Endnotes

Chapter 7

1. Since Marie Curie’s time, scientists have more closely determined radium’s atomic weight. It is now listed as 226.05. Back

2. For convenience, however, the unit measured is oxygen, which has a unit weight of 16. All other elements are compared to this standard. Back

Chapter 14

1. Carbon dating can now go far beyond 45,000 years. Back

About the Auithor

Elizabeth Rubin was a Staff Editor for The Book of Popular Science. In addition to The Curies and Radium, she wrote many articles on scientific subjects, and was  a television science writer.

For Students and Teachers

Please see more titles from Ebooksforstudents.org where district-wide, school-wide, and classroom-wide licenses are available. Please call us with questions about  licenses for concurrent use by all your students in a building or school district at 202-464-9126.

(Samples of all the ebooks below are available on Amazon.)

Young Adult Books
(with Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level)

Flight to Freedom-The Story of the Underground Railroad

by Henrietta Buckmaster (4.7)

Revolt on the Amistad 

by Emma Gelders Sterne (5.1)

Patrick Henry: Firebrand of the Revolution

by Nardi Campion (5.6)

Benito Juarez-Builder of a Nation

by Emma Gelders Sterne (6.3)

Juarez-Hero of Mexico

by Nina Brown Baker (6.0)

Malcolm X: Another Side of the Movement

by Mark Davies (6.1)

Mary McLeod Bethune

by Emma Gelders Sterne. (7.6)

The Life of W.E.B. Du Bois: His Was the Voice

by Emma Gelders Sterne (6.5)

Michael Faraday

by Harry Sootin (6.4)

He Wouldn't be King: The Story of Simon Bolivar

by Nina Brown Baker (6.3)

Edward Jenner and Smallpox Vaccination

by Irmengarde Eberle (7.3)

Lenin with a Study Guide

by Nina Baker Brown (9.0)

Thomas Edison

by Roselyn and Ray Eldon Hiebert (9.1)

Revolts, Resistance and Emancipation

by Dorothy Sterling (9.1)

Bayard Rustin: Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movement

by James Haskin (11.0)

Power to the People: The Rise and Fall of the Black Panther Party

by Jim Haskins (11.3)

Military/Political Memoirs

Leatherhead in Korea: On the Front Lines with a U.S. Marine Combat Artist

by Norval E. Packwood (mostly illustrations) (3.0)

Serenade to the Big Bird

by Bert Stiles (6.2)

Agent in Italy with a Study Guide

by S.K. (6.4)

The New Legions

by Donald Duncan (6.7)

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific with Maps

By Robert Leckie (7.4)

Runaway Russia

by Florence McLeod Harper (6.4)

Last Flight from Singapore

by Arthur Gerald Donahue, D.F.C. (8.7)

Freedom Ride: Civil Rights and Non-Violent Resistance with a Forward by James Baldwin

by James Peck (9.4)

Journalism and Biographies

Mrs. R: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt

by Alfred Steinberg (8.3)

War in Korea: the Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent

by Marguerite Higgins (Pulitzer Prize Winner for International Reporting) (8.4)

Mississippi Notebook: Freedom Summer June-August 1964

by Nicholas Von Hoffman (8.7)

Abraham Lincoln

by James Daugherty (8.8)

Revolution in Mexico-Death is Incidental

by Heath Bowman and Sterling Dickinson (8.8).

Benjamin Franklin: The First Civilized American

by Philips Russell (9.5)

Thurgood Marshall: From His Early Years to Brown

by Hunter R. Clark and Michael D. Davis (10.1)

Thurgood Marshall: His Triumph in Brown, His Years on the Supreme Court

by Hunter R. Clark and Michael D. Davis (10.2)

The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbott, Founder of the Chicago Defender

by Roi Ottley (11.0)

Harlem: People, Power, and Politics 1900-1950

by Roi Ottley, previously published as New World A-Coming for which Ottley won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (9.5)

A Stranger in My House: Jews and Arabs in the West Bank

by Walter Reich (14.5)

The Legend of John Brown

by Richard O. Boyer (15.9)

Individual copies are available at Amazon. Class set licenses, school-wide, and district-wide licenses which provide students with ebooks at 5¢ a copy and less are available at ebooksforstudents.org