Maria met another lecturer at the Sorbonne, Pierre Curie, later her husband. The two of them often worked together on the study of radioactive substances, mainly pitchblende, because the total radioactivity of this ore was stronger than the radioactivity of the uranium it contained.In 1898, the Curies drew a logical deduction from this phenomenon: pitchblende must contain some unknown radioactive ingredient far more radioactive than that of uranium.On December 26th, Madame Curie announced the the conception of the existence of this new substance.
In the years that followed, Mr. and Mrs. Curie continued to refine the radioactive components of pitchblende. After tireless efforts, Mr. and Mrs. Curie finally succeeded in isolating radium chloride and discovering two new chemical elements: polonium (Po) and radium (Ra). For their discoveries and research in radioactivity, Mr. and Mrs. Curie and Henri Becquerel*** were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, and Mrs. Curie became the first woman in history to receive the Nobel Prize. Eight years later, in 1911, Mrs. Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her successful isolation of the element radium. Surprisingly, after winning the Nobel Prize, Madame Curie did not patent her method of extracting pure radium, but publicized it, a practice that effectively advanced radiochemistry.
Madame Curie in her later years and her husband's former student Paul Lang Chiwan had a romance, this incident in France made a storm. 1911 Paris News in November 4 headline "Love story: Madame Curie and Professor Lang Chiwan", rumors that Pierre was alive, Lang Chiwan and Madame Curie have close contact. Einstein's take on the matter was that if they loved each other, it was nobody's business, and he wrote a letter to Madame Curie on Nov. 23, 1911, as a consolation.
Madame Curie was the first person in history to win two Nobel Prizes, and one of only two to do so in different fields. During World War I, Madame Curie promoted the use of radiology in medicine by advocating the use of radiology to treat the wounded. Later, in 1921, she traveled to the United States to raise money for radiology research. Madame Curie died on July 4, 1934, in Haute-Savoie, France, after being overexposed to radioactive materials. Her eldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her youngest daughter, Eve Curie, wrote a biography of Madame Curie after her mother's death. During the inflation of the 1990s, Madame Curie's head appeared on Polish and French currency and postage stamps. The chemical element curium (Cm, 96) was named in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Curie. Mrs. Curie authored "My Faith.
I. Studying hard to get into the University of Paris
Marie Curie was the youngest of five children in her family, and also the brightest. Her father was a secondary school mathematics and science teacher with a very limited income, and her mother was a secondary school teacher. Marie's childhood was unfortunate; her mother had a serious contagious disease, and it was her big sister who took care of her as she grew up. Later, her mom and big sister fell ill and died when she was less than 10 years old. Her life was full of hardships. Such a living environment not only cultivated her ability to live independently, but also enabled her to hone a very strong character from an early age.
Mary has been a very diligent student since she was a child, and has a strong interest and special hobby in learning, never letting go of any opportunity to learn, and showing a kind of tenacious enterprising spirit everywhere. From the beginning of elementary school, she took the first place in every subject, and at the age of 15, she graduated from secondary school with a gold medal. Her father had studied physics at St. Petersburg University, and her father's hunger for scientific knowledge and strong sense of enterprise also y inspired little Mary. Since she was a child, she loved all kinds of instruments in her father's laboratory, and when she grew up, she read many books on natural sciences, which filled her with fantasies and made her eager to explore the world of science. At the age of 19, however, she began to work as a permanent tutor, and at the same time, she studied on her own in order to prepare for her future studies. At the age of 24, she finally arrived at the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris. With a strong desire to learn, she listened to every class with full attention. The hard study made her health become worse and worse, but her academic performance was always among the best, which not only made her classmates envy, but also made the professors amazed. Two years after her enrollment, she took the examination for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Physics with full confidence, and she took the first place among the 32 applicants. The following year, she took the B.S. degree in mathematics, again with second place honors.
Early in 1894, Marie accepted a scientific research project on the magnetism of various types of iron and steel proposed by the National Committee for the Promotion of Industry of France*** and the State. In the course of completing this scientific project, she met Pierre Curie, a teacher at the School of Physics and Chemistry, who was an accomplished young scientist. The desire to use science for the benefit of mankind **** led to their union. After her marriage, Marie was respectfully addressed as Madame Curie, and in 1896, Madame Curie completed her postgraduate exams with a first-place finish. The next year, she also completed the study of the magnetism of various kinds of steel. However, she was not satisfied with the results achieved, determined to take the doctoral examination, and determined her own research direction. She stood on a new starting line.
Two, the light of radium
1896, France **** and the country's physicists Becquerel published a working paper, a detailed description of his discovery of the element uranium through a number of experiments, uranium and its compounds have a special ability, it can automatically and continuously put out a kind of human eyes can not see the rays of the ray, this ray and the general light is different, can be through the black paper to make the Photographic film sensitization, it is also different from the discovery of roentgen rays with roentgen, in the absence of high-vacuum gas discharge and external high voltage conditions, but can occur automatically from uranium and uranium salts. Uranium and its compounds constantly emit rays, radiating energy outward. This intrigued Madame Curie. What was the source of this energy? And what was the nature of this distinctive ray? Madame Curie was determined to unravel its secrets. 1897, Madame Curie chose her own research topic - the study of radioactive substances. This research topic brought her into the new world of science. She diligently reclaimed a virgin land, and finally accomplished one of the most important discoveries in the modern history of science, the discovery of the radioactive element radium, and laid the foundation of modern radiochemistry, making great contributions to mankind.
Three, gold - like mind
Because of the amazing discovery of Mr. and Mrs. Curie, in December 1903, they and Becquerel together won the Nobel Prize in Physics. The couple's scientific achievements cover the world, however, they are extremely contemptuous of fame and fortune, the most bored with those boring entertainment. They devoted themselves to the cause of science without any personal gain. After the success of radium refining, some people advised them to apply for a patent from the government and monopolize the manufacture of radium so as to make a fortune. Mrs. Curie said: "That is against the spirit of science, the research results of scientists should be published publicly, and other people should not be subjected to any restriction if they want to develop it". "Besides, radium is good for patients, we should not use it to make a profit". Mr. and Mrs. Curie also took the Nobel Prize money they received and gave it away in large quantities.
In 1906, Mr. Curie unfortunately died in a car accident, Mrs. Curie suffered great pain, she was determined to redouble her efforts to complete the two people **** the same scientific volunteers. The University of Paris decided that Madame Curie would succeed Mr. Curie in teaching physics. Madame Curie became the first ever female professor at the prestigious University of Paris, still at the time when the couple isolated the first radium salts, and began research on the various properties of radiation. Between 1889 and 1904 alone, they published 32 scholarly reports documenting their explorations in the science of radioactivity, and in 1910, Madame Curie completed her book, Monographa de Radioactivity. She also collaborated with others to successfully produce metallic radium, and in 1911, Mrs. Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A woman scientist, in less than 10 years, twice in two different fields of science, won the world's highest prize in science, which is unique in the history of world science!
In 1914, the Institut de Radium was established in Paris, and Madame Curie served as its research director. Later she continued to teach at the university and to work on radioactive elements. She was unstinting in her efforts to spread scientific knowledge to all who wanted to learn. She began at the age of 16 and studied and worked as an adult for exactly 50 years. But she still doesn't change that strict lifestyle. She grew up with a high degree of self-sacrifice, and in her early years she was willing to work as a servant in other people's homes to pay for her sister's schooling. During her studies in Paris, she read in the library every night until it closed in order to save money on lamp oil and heating expenses. The bituminous uranium ore needed to extract pure radium was very expensive at that time, and they saved little by little from their own living expenses and bought 8 or 9 tons of it successively. After Mr. Curie's death, Mrs. Curie gave the radium, which had been refined with great painstaking efforts and valued at up to more than 1,000,000 gold francs, to a laboratory for research on the cure of cancer without any compensation.
In 1932, at the age of 65, Mrs. Curie returned to her homeland to attend the opening ceremony of the Warsaw Radium Institute. Since her youth, Mrs. Curie has been away from her country, and went to France **** and the country to study. But she never forgot her motherland. When she was a child, her native Poland was invaded by Tsarist Russia, and she hated the invaders very much. When the couple isolated a new element from a mineral, she named it polonium. This is because the root of polonium is the same as the root of the name of Poland. It was a way for her to express her deep nostalgia for her country, which had been enslaved by the Tsarist Russians.
Over the decades, Madame Curie was attacked by radioactive elements from time to time due to her long-term research work on radioactive substances, coupled with harsh experimental environments and insufficiently strict protection of her body, which gradually damaged her blood and caused her to suffer from leukemia. She also suffered from lung disease, eye disease, bile disease, kidney disease, and even suffered from neurological disorder. For Mrs. Curie, scientific research was more important than her own health. She once asked her doctor to postpone her kidney operation so that she could attend the World Congress of Physics; she once returned to her country to attend the opening ceremony of the Radium Institute with her illness. She had endured the fear of losing her eyesight and tenaciously carried out scientific research. Until the last breath of her life, due to pernicious anemia, high fever, lying in bed, but still asked her daughter to report to her work in the laboratory, for her proofreading her "radioactivity" work. Mrs. Curie died on July 4, 1934, after dedicating her life to her beloved science.
On July 4, 1934, Madame Curie died after a long illness. She finally died of pernicious anemia. She spent her life creating and developing the science of radioactivity, fearlessly researching intensely radioactive substances for a long time, until she finally devoted her life to this science. During her life, she won 10 prestigious prizes, including the Nobel Prize, and 16 medals awarded by high-level international academic institutions; and she was awarded more than 107 titles by governments and scientific research organizations around the world. But she was as modest and prudent as ever. The great scientist Albert Einstein commented, "Of all the famous people, Marie Curie is the only one who has not been spoiled by fame!" Mrs. Curie was the epitome of femininity.
Madame Curie won 10 prizes, 16 medals, 107 honorary titles, and especially two Nobel Prizes in her lifetime***.
[edit]Celebrity anecdotes
Mindless of fame and fortune
Madame Curie is known all over the world, but she seeks neither fame nor fortune. She won 10 prizes, 16 medals and 107 honorary titles, but she didn't care. One day, one of her friends to her home as a guest, suddenly saw her little daughter is playing the Royal Society just issued to her gold medals, so surprised to say: "Mrs. Curie, get a medal of the Royal Society, is a very high honor, how can you give children to play it?" Madame Curie smiled and said, "I want my child to know from an early age that honors are like toys, they can only be played with, and must never be taken too seriously, or they will achieve nothing."
Teaching daughters well
Mrs. Curie has two daughters. "Grasp the advantages of the age of intellectual development" is Mrs. Curie's development of the child's intellect is an important "know-how". As early as when her daughter was less than a week old, Mrs. Curie guided her children to early childhood intellectual gymnastics training, guided her children to a wide range of contact with strangers, to go to the zoo to watch animals, so that the children learn to swim, and enjoy the beauty of nature. When the children were a little older, she taught them to do a kind of intellectual gymnastics with artistic colors, taught them to sing children's songs and tell fairy tales. When they are a little older, they are given intellectual training, taught to read and write, to play the piano, to do handicrafts and so on, and taught to drive a car and ride a horse.
Mrs. Curie consulted with her friends -- all of whom, like her, were professors at Thorburn; all of whom, like her, were also parents. At Madame Curie's instigation, an educational cooperative program arose - a number of scholars of great talent and wisdom brought their sons and daughters together to implement a new approach to education. Mrs. Curie's great contribution to human education lies in the fact that she united a large group of scientists (many of whom were Nobel Prize winners in science) to form a group of science lecturers who opened their laboratories to the children and personally educated their children in scientific initiation, aroused the children's interest in science, broke down the children's mysticism towards science, cultivated the children's interest in science, encouraged them to set up a lofty scientific ideal, and Firming children's scientific will, teaching children the scientific method, scientific thinking, experimental know-how, so that children in their teenage years to form a very high intellectual potential, so that the children's innate genius genetic intelligence can be developed, and Mrs. Curie ultimately cultivated more than 10 Nobel Prize winners in science.
Simple life
When Mrs. Curie and Pierre Curie got married in 1895, there were only two chairs in the new house, exactly one for each of the two. Pierre Curie felt that the chairs were too few, and suggested adding a few more so that guests would not have no place to sit, but Mrs. Curie said: "It's good to have chairs, but the guests won't go away if they sit down. In order to have more time for research, let's forget about it!"
Mrs. Curie's annual salary has increased to 40,000 francs, but she is still "generous". Every time she came back from abroad, always bring back some of the banquet menu, because these menus are very thick and very good paper, writing on the back is very convenient. No wonder someone said that Mrs. Curie was "like a poor woman in a hurry" until her death.
On one occasion, an American reporter looking for Mrs. Curie, he went to the village of a fisherman's house in front of the door to the barefoot sitting on the door of a woman on the slate inquiring about Mrs. Curie's residence, when the woman raised his head, the reporter was surprised: the original she is Mrs. Curie.
Character Education
1. Cultivate the character of thrift and simplicity, and lightness of wealth. Her love for her daughters, manifested in a kind of restrained love, a kind of sensible love, she was on her daughters to live a strict discipline, requiring them to "thrift to raise the will", she taught her daughters that: "Poverty is certainly inconvenient, but too rich is not necessarily a good thing. One must rely on one's own strength to make a living."
2. Cultivate their style of not thinking in vain and emphasizing practicality. She admonished her two daughters, "We should not waste our lives."
3. Cultivate their character of bravery, strength, optimism and overcoming difficulties. She often with her children *** encouragement: "We must have perseverance, especially to have self-confidence. "
4. Teach them that they must love their country. In addition to teaching them the Polish language, Mrs. Curie's commitment to helping her country's scientific development and Polish students was a source of inspiration for Irena and Eve, especially as they remembered their homeland.
Before Mr. and Mrs. Curie discovered radium, it was just becoming known that a rare metal called uranium could emit penetrating rays called X-rays. When Mrs. Curie learned of this, she immediately thought that perhaps there were other substances that had similar radiating abilities to uranium. In order to confirm this conjecture, they began to do experiments.
Mrs. and Mrs. Curie had a storage room converted into a small laboratory, which had no floor, was cold in winter and hot in summer, and had only a stove with a broken chimney, four benches of varying lengths, and a worn-out blackboard. It was in this laboratory that they began their grueling work.
Mary used her instruments to observe an ore of pitchblende uranium, which she believed contained another highly radioactive element, a new one that had not yet been discovered. She and her husband decided to find this element, which they first called "radium", and to prove its existence, they had to extract it from the pitchblende. In order to save money, they did not buy expensive pitchblende, but only large quantities of the residues of pitchblende that had been refined. There was special refining equipment in the yard, but it was subject to the scorching sun in the summer and freezing in the winter. If there was a downpour, the two men had to manhandle the machinery inside again.
Marie and her husband put their hearts and souls into their work. Every day they wore overalls stained with grime and various liquids, watched over the boiling minerals in the pots and kept stirring them with the iron bars in their hands. The soot and poisonous gases irritated their eyes and throats, making it very difficult for them. The work was grueling and monotonous, and so it went on for a year, two years, three years, and still the radium did not appear.
Because it was too hard, the husband wanted to stop working for a while, but Mrs. Curie said, "No, I will never give up, I believe we will succeed!" They imagined that radium would have a beautiful color, and when they were tired of working they would sit and talk about this new element, radium, which made them excited and thrilled.
Finally, one day, the radium that Marie and Pierre had daydreamed about appeared.
That night, when they returned home, they were slow to go to sleep. Mrs. Curie, in particular, felt a sense of unease in her heart, so she stood up and took her husband by the hand, saying, "Come on, let's go there, shall we?"
"There" was their laboratory. They hurried to the lab in the moonlight, as if they heard radium calling softly to them.
The couple made their way down the street, past factories, empty lots, through a residential neighborhood, and finally into their tiny laboratory.
When the door was opened, Mary said softly, "Don't light the lamp, dear! Don't we want radium to have beautiful colors?" Pierre nodded, "Well then, let's have a look."
The room was dark, and in the darkness if anything there was a fluorescent blue light that jumped in the darkness like a firefly in the night. Marie looked at the beautiful blue light and was so excited that she clasped Pierre's hand. She knew that they had succeeded, and that this beautiful light was the light emitted by the mysterious element radium.
After four years, Mr. and Mrs. Curie overcame the difficulties and proved the existence of radium. Many scientists, who originally did not believe in the existence of radium, were now forced to recognize it in front of the facts. They expressed their admiration for Mr. and Mrs. Curie.
Marie married the physicist Pierre Curie in 1895. From then on, the couple **** together in the study of radioactive elements.
Marie Curie tested the radioactivity of many substances with an electrical detector, and found that asphalt uranium ore was extremely radioactive, and initially concluded that it must contain a much stronger radioactive substance than uranium. So she was determined to extract it. However, it was easier said than done. First of all, the asphalt ore must be decomposed, and then separated and purified countless times before the new element could be captured. The job was truly like finding a needle in a haystack.
But even the most difficult things are not hard for this woman scientist. In the absence of funds and equipment, Marie Curie asked her husband, Curie, to give up his physics research for a while to fully assist her in her battle to capture the new elements. In order to realize his wife's ambition, Curie resolutely agreed to her request, **** with the work of dealing with large quantities of bituminous uranium ore.
Tons of asphalt uranium ore were shipped from Austria, but there were no laboratories available to process such large quantities. So Marie Curie had to borrow a damp and unventilated warehouse from the university. The room temperature was only 6℃ in winter and hot and stuffy in summer. When Mr. and Mrs. Curie were nervous about their work, they had to eat cold bread and drink cold milk to satisfy their hunger. The two of them in this most humble laboratory, created a world-class scientific research.
The asphalt uranium ore contains a large number of impurities, bismuth, copper, lead, iron, uranium, thorium ...... dozens of compounds, you have to dissolve the first acid, and then pass into the hydrogen sulfide will be precipitated one by one, a group of a group of separation. Finally found a new radioactive element in the bismuth sulfide precipitation. It was the culmination of several years of hard work by the couple.
What would be a good name for the new element?
Marie Curie said to her husband: "Although I have become a French citizen after marrying you, I still can't forget Poland, the country where I was born and raised, and where I grew up and suffered, so let me name it polonium in honor of that great and suffering country. " Curie very much understand his wife's pain, readily agreed.
Mrs. Curie's fame has been passed down from the moment she discovered radium, and it has been a hundred years now. It is an honor that she paid for with all her youth, faith and life. In her lifetime*** she won 10 prizes, 16 medals, 107 honorary titles, and especially two Nobel Prizes. She could have reclined on any of the prizes or any of the honors to her heart's content. But she regarded fame and fortune as dirt, she will give the prize money to the cause of scientific research and the war in France, and will give those medals to the 6-year-old little daughter to go as a toy