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Marie Curie

Explorer · ages 7 and underAdapted from Wikipedia
Pierre and Marie Curie in their laboratory, using special equipment to measure the radioactivity of ore samples. Their careful experiments led to the discovery of radium.

Who was Marie Curie?

Maria Skłodowska, known as Marie Curie, was a Polish and naturalised French physicist and chemist. Physicists and chemists are scientists who study how things work and what they are made of.

Her big discoveries

In 1903, Marie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre Curie. They worked on radioactivity, a discovery first made by Henri Becquerel. In 1911, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for finding two new elements, radium and polonium. She named polonium after her homeland, Poland.

Marie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She was also the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice. She and Pierre were the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize, and this started the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes.

Growing up and helping others

Marie was born in Warsaw. She studied at the secret Flying University, where women could learn science. In 1891, she followed her older sister Bronisława to Paris. She later became the first woman to be a professor at the University of Paris.

In 1920, she founded the Curie Institute in Paris. In 1932, she founded the Curie Institute in Warsaw. During a difficult time when countries did not get along, she helped bring X-ray machines to hospitals. She also taught her daughters the Polish language.

Marie passed away in 1934. In 1995, she was honoured in the Panthéon in Paris. Her name lives on in the curium element and the curie, a unit used in science. Her name has even been proposed for the Eiffel Tower.

Quiz time!

3 questions about Marie Curie

Question 1 of 3

What did Marie Curie name polonium after?

Pictures

The Nobel Prize diploma awarded in 1903 to Pierre and Marie Curie, who shared the physics prize with Henri Becquerel. Becquerel's name appears on the document too.
The Łyszkiewicz Tenement House at Freta Street 16 in Warsaw, Poland, a historic building in the city's Old Town.
Marie Curie (center) with her father Władysław Skłodowski and her sisters Bronisława and Helena, around 1890.
The building at 66 Krakowskie Przedmieście Street in Warsaw, where Maria Skłodowska-Curie did her first scientific work in 1890–91.
Pierre Curie and Marie Curie, photographed together in 1895. The two scientists worked side by side to study radioactivity and discovered the elements radium and polonium.
Marie, Pierre, and their daughter Irène Curie, a famous family of scientists.
Marie Curie, the famous scientist, photographed in 1903.
A card in the Curie Museum in Paris that names Marie Curie as a professor at the Faculty of Sciences.
Scientists who gathered for the first Solvay Conference in Brussels, Belgium, in 1911. The group includes Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Ernest Rutherford, who were among the leading physicists of their time.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie's Nobel Prize in Chemistry diploma from 1911, which recognized her discovery of the elements polonium and radium.
Maria Skłodowska (later known as Marie Curie) and her sister Bronisława in 1886. The sisters made a plan: Maria worked as a governess and saved money so Bronisława could study medicine in Paris, and later Bronisława would help pay for Maria's studies.
A 1904 Vanity Fair caricature of scientists Pierre and Marie Curie, labeled "Radium" after the element they discovered.
Statue of Maria Skłodowska-Curie (Lublin)
Bust of "Maria Skłodowska-Curie", CERN Museum, Switzerland, 2015

Keep exploring

Radium
Warsaw
Nobel Prize
Physicist
Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Chemistry

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Marie Curie, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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