Marie Curie (1867— 1934) is a famous French physicist and chemist. She found that the chemical elements polonium and radium were the founders of radiology and made great contributions to the development of nuclear science and atomic energy.
Marie Curie, formerly known as Marie Skoro Dovska,/kloc-0 was born in Warsaw on October 7th, 1867 165438. My father is a middle school math and physics teacher. Under his influence, little Mary became interested in physical phenomena from an early age. My mother is a primary school principal. They have five children, and Mary is the youngest. When she was three or four years old, she often listened attentively to her brothers and sisters. Sister Bronia sometimes taught Mary to read and write by spelling words with letters cut from paper plates, and soon she learned to read.
Mary had a very unhappy childhood. At that time, Poland was under the iron hoof of the czar, and the Polish people waged indomitable struggles in various forms. Mary's father, like thousands of Poles in Qian Qian, loved his motherland and refused to be a docile subject of the czar, and was often watched by secret agents. 1876, her sister died of typhoid fever, and her mother died two years later. The pain of national subjugation and family changes deeply hurt Mary's young mind, but adversity also cultivated her strong character and patriotism.
Mary entered a private primary school at the age of six. This school has strict management, serious teaching and a strong national flavor. Although Mary is young, she studies hard. Although Poland was ruled by Russia at that time, Polish was not allowed to give lectures in schools, and only Russian books were allowed. However, there are still some teachers who teach their students to cultivate their patriotism from childhood in Polish, so that they will not forget their motherland Poland. Mary was thus educated in patriotism.
/kloc-at the age of 0/4, Mary entered Warsaw public high school for girls. As she grew older, her patriotic thoughts became stronger and stronger. In the center of Warsaw's Sasak Square stands a stone tablet engraved with "In memory of loyal Poles" in Russian. This was established by the czar's minions. Whenever Mary passes this square, she always spits bitterly at the stone tablet. If you forget it, no matter how far you go, you have to go back and make it up.
1In June, 883, Mary graduated from high school with excellent results and won a gold medal. After graduating from high school, Mary had to go abroad to go to college. Because Polish universities didn't accept girls, but her father couldn't send her to study abroad, so she became a tutor. She lived a very frugal life and sent the money she saved to her sister bronia, who was studying in Paris.
1890, 23-year-old Mary ended her five-year governess life. In the same year, her sister graduated from the Medical College of Paris University and became a doctor. She wrote a letter urging Mary to go to Paris for college. 189 1 year, Mary went to Paris and studied in the Faculty of Science of Paris University.
After Mary arrived in Paris, she stayed at her sister's house for a while. She feels that although her brother-in-law and sister are very kind to her, her brother-in-law is a sociable person, who often meets at home and has many guests, which makes her unable to concentrate on her studies. It's an hour's drive from my brother-in-law's house to Paris University, and I have to pay the fare back and forth. Mary didn't want to waste precious time, so she went to a place near the school alone and rented an extremely simple house to live in. In order to spend more time studying, she often eats only dry bread for several weeks and doesn't even want to spend time cooking. Every day in class, she is always the first to arrive, sitting in the nearest place to the podium, listening attentively to the professor.
During the day, Mary works in the laboratory besides attending classes. In order to save fuel at night, she went to the library to study until the library closed. After returning to her small house, she continued reading until late at night.
Hard work and poor life have damaged Mary's health. Once, she fainted. After diagnosis, my sister knew that she was anemic.
1893, Mary successfully passed the master's exam in physics with excellent results, and the next year, she got a master's degree in mathematics.
At the beginning of 1894, Mary accepted the commission of the National Association for the Promotion of Industry to study the magnetism of various steels. During this period, she met the French scientist pierre curie. Dedicated to the cause of science, * * * is closely linked with ideals. 1895 In July, Mary married Pierre. Since then, Mary has added housework besides working in the laboratory for 8 hours every day. It is under such difficult conditions that through hard and tenacious efforts, Mary passed the teacher diploma exam with the first place in 1896; 1897 completed the research on Magnetism of Various Steels and wrote a monograph, which was well received by experts.
1896, French physicist becquerel discovered that uranium salt minerals can emit wonderful rays. Although this kind of ray is invisible, it can pass through black paper that ordinary light can't penetrate, making the photographic negative sensitive. Although becquerel discovered this kind of radiation, why uranium salts emit this kind of radiation is still an unsolved mystery. Becquerel's discovery aroused great interest of Madame Curie. She thinks this is an excellent research topic for her doctoral thesis, and decides to devote all her energy to this science garden that needs reclamation. She borrowed a cold and humid workshop as a laboratory in the physics and chemistry school where Pierre used to work.
After several weeks of careful exploration, Madame Curie reached a preliminary result, pointing out that the radiation intensity of uranium is directly proportional to the amount of uranium, and is not affected by the combination of uranium and other elements; This radiation is not affected by light or temperature changes, and has nothing to do with the external environment. Madame Curie also found that this kind of ray has an unknown property, unlike anything known, it is not affected by other things. After careful study, she found that this is a property of atoms and a property of uranium. In this case, Madame Curie thinks that uranium can emit such rays, so why can't other elements emit the same rays? So she decided to check whether all known chemical elements can emit radiation and found that thorium also has such properties. Madame Curie called this phenomenon radioactivity.
In addition to examining the radioactivity of simple elements and simple compounds, she further examined various complex minerals. Facts have proved that all minerals containing uranium and thorium are radioactive, while other minerals are not. But when she examined pitchblende, she found an exception: the radioactive intensity of this mineral is much greater than that calculated from the content of uranium or thorium in it. It has been proved to be correct by many tests. Mary was keenly aware that pitchblende might contain a new element with strong radioactivity.
Because this problem is so important, Pierre had to give up the study of crystallography and look for new elements with Mary. After repeated testing, verification and careful analysis, the Curie couple confirmed the existence of new elements in July 1897. Pierrejean Mary gave this new element a name. Mary thought about it and said, "I want to name it polonium to commemorate my motherland." Pierre nodded silently.
In June 5438+February of the same year, they found a more radioactive element from pitchblende, which can automatically emit light in the dark. According to this property, Madame Curie named this new element radium, which means radiation in Latin.
The news that two radioactive elements, polonium and radium, were discovered one after another quickly spread all over the world, and scientists talked about it one after another. Some people agree, some people doubt.
Mary and Curie decided to extract radium from pitchblende in order to prove their new discovery to the scientific community. However, this requires a large number of pitchblende, which is an extremely precious mineral seedling and they cannot afford it. They asked people for help and got some pitchblende residues, and they planned to separate and extract radium from these residues.
In order to extract radium, the Curies ran around looking for a house, but they never found it, so they had to go back to the dilapidated shack used by the physics and chemistry school. The tools they use are also very simple. In order to crush the residue and heat it, Mary has to stir 30 to 40 kilograms of slag at a time. She has to stir it for several hours, and she has to move a large distillation pot to pour the boiling solution from one pot to another. The pungent smell of asphalt often makes her cough and cry. After a hard day's work, Madame Curie was exhausted.
After 45 months of unremitting efforts and cooperation with Qi Xin, the Curies finally extracted110g radium salt from slag in 1902. The true face of radium is more beautiful and lovely than they thought. It glows blue, just like a beautiful star in the night sky. In the same year, they preliminarily determined the atomic weight of radium and confirmed its existence.
Madame Curie first studied radium in order to write a doctoral thesis. Unexpectedly, the deeper the research, the deeper the interest, so she simply put aside the matter of doing her doctoral thesis. It was not until 1903 that I passed the doctoral thesis exam.
In recognition of their brilliant achievements in science, the Swedish Academy Science Prize awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics to the Curies (1903). 1904, the Faculty of Science of Paris University invited Pierre to give a lecture on physics in the Faculty of Science and assigned it to the laboratory, with Madame Curie as the director of the laboratory.
However, just as they happily used their wisdom and ability to advance to a new scientific peak, disaster came. 1906 19 On April 9, Pierre was run over by a carriage while crossing the road. Madame Curie was shocked by the bad news. She not only lost her beloved husband, but also lost her close comrade-in-arms who climbed the peak of science. However, she did not shake her strong will to devote herself to science.
In the year of Pierre's death, after the efforts and struggles of many scientists and friendly people, the old tradition that Paris University never hired female professors was broken, and Madame Curie decided to take Pierre's place. Her speech was very successful and was well received by the audience. Madame Curie inherited the radioactive research work she and her husband did before their death. 1908, she edited and published her husband's last manuscript, entitled The Works of pierre curie. 19 10, she successfully separated the metal radium, thus analyzing the various properties of radium and accurately measuring its atomic weight. This year, Madame Curie published her masterpiece about radioactivity. In the front of the book, there is a picture of Pierre. Madame Curie said modestly that some of her achievements were the result of cooperation with her husband. In recognition of Madame Curie's great scientific achievements after her husband's death, the Swedish Academy Science Award awarded her the Nobel Prize again on 19 1 1.
Soon, with the consent of Madame Curie, the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute decided to jointly establish the Radium Institute, which was completed in July 19 14. Radium research institute is divided into two parts: one is a laboratory for studying radiology, led by Madame Curie. Part of it is a laboratory that studies biology and Curie therapy, and is engaged in the research of cancer and its treatment. This part is directed by Professor Guo Rui, a famous scholar and doctor. The two institutions cooperate in the research and development of radium.
1965438+In August 2004, World War I broke out. In order to meet the needs of the battlefield, Madame Curie concentrated on the research of X-ray and tried her best to solve the X-ray equipment. Madame Curie ran back and forth in the front line of treating the wounded and sick. She not only acts as a guide, but also often takes photos with her relatives, and then the surgeon takes out the projectiles according to the parts marked in the photos. During the whole war, the X-ray equipment invented and directed by Madame Curie treated10 million patients.
Madame Curie's noble quality of not being confused by fame and fortune is not only manifested in serving the battlefield, but also in all aspects. Shortly after the discovery of radium, people gradually realized that the radiation emitted by radium has amazing physiological effects: it can penetrate the densest substances and destroy diseased cells. Laser beam has become an effective weapon to treat cancer. This miracle immediately aroused great interest in radium in all countries of the world, especially industrialists and businessmen. Many countries, such as America, France and Belgium, want to extract radium. At this time, the Curies were advised to apply for a patent to monopolize the manufacture of radium. However, they did not do so. They believe that scientific inventions should not be used as a means to seek personal gain, but should benefit mankind. The Curies announced the method of extracting radium to the world without reservation, instead of obtaining a patent right.
192 1 May, Madame Curie went to new york to receive a gram of radium from the President of the United States. The night before the ceremony, Madame Curie carefully read the "gift certificate" and announced on the spot that "this gift certificate must be changed. This gram of radium given to me by the United States should always belong to science. Needless to say, I will use it completely for scientific research while I am alive. According to this statement now, it means that this gram of radium will become private property after my death, that is, the private property of my daughters. This is absolutely impossible. " She demanded immediate correction. Because of Madame Curie's firm and sincere attitude, the American authorities had to call a lawyer overnight and modify the certificate according to Madame Curie's opinion.
Einstein, the greatest scientist in the 20th century who had a deep friendship with Madame Curie, once said, "Among all famous people, Madame Curie is the only one who is not reversed by honor."
During her decades of scientific career, Madame Curie was very concerned about the cultivation of talents. She often thought that there must be countless talents buried in poor social strata, so when 1922 was recommended as an honorary member of the International Cultural Cooperation Committee in May, she planned to contribute to the establishment of an international research fund. She said in a report: "Isn't it the task of the League of Nations to promote the development of scientific talents?" There are not many such talents, so don't give up one easily. Madame Curie personally instructed young scientists from all over the world to carry out research work. It has trained many outstanding scientists for all countries in the world.
In her later years, Madame Curie suffered from malignant leukemia. Although she received treatment and recuperation at the seaside, she failed to recover due to long-term serious damage from radioactive substances. 1934 On July 4th, the heart of this female scientist who made great contributions to mankind stopped beating at the age of 67. This article is compiled and published by Strategy Network. If you reprint this article, please keep the source and link of this article.
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