Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934)—her life and discoveries

SWM (Schweizer Waffen Magazin) 12/2009

Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934)power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence,did not depend on an external source ofenergy, but seemed to arise spontaneously from uraniumitself [1–3]. Becquerel himself made specific observations,for instance that gases through which the rays passedbecame conductors of electricity, but he soon left this field.Becquerel had, in fact, discovered radioactivity butSkłodowska–Curie decided to look into uranium rays as apossible field of research for a thesis. She used a clevertechnique to investigate samples. Fifteen years earlier, herhusband Pierre and his brother Jacques had invented theelectrometer, a sensitive device for measuring electricalcharges. Using the Curie electrometer, she discovered thatthorium gives off the same rays as uranium and uraniumrays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity[7]. Using this technique, her first discovery was that theactivity of uranium compounds depended only on thequantity of uranium present. She had shown that radiationwas not the outcome of some interaction of molecules, butmust come from an atom itself. In scientific terms, this wasthe most important single piece of work that she conducted[30]. Skłodowska–Curie’s systematic studies had includedtwo uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (alsoknown as chalcolite). Her electrometer showed thatpitchblende was four times as active as uranium itself,and chalcolite twice as active [4]. She concluded that, if herearlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activitywere correct, then these two minerals must contain smallquantities of some other substance that was far more activethan uranium itself [37]. The idea (writes [30]) was herown; no one helped her formulate it, and although she tookit to her husband for his opinion she clearly established herownership of it. She later recorded the fact twice in herbiography of her husband, to ensure there was no chancewhatsoever of any ambiguity [7]. It is likely that already atthis early stage of her career she realized that manyscientists would find it difficult to believe that a womancould be capable of original work in the field in which shewas involved [30]. In her systematic search for othersubstances beside uranium salts that emitted radiation,Skłodowska–Curie found that the element thorium, likewise,was radioactive. She was acutely aware of theimportance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thusestablishing her primacy [34]. Had not Becquerel, twoyears earlier, presented his discovery to the Académie desSciences, the day after he made it, the credit for thediscovery of radioactivity, and even the Nobel Prize, wouldhave gone to Silvanus Thompson (Professor of Physics atthe City and Guilds Technical College in Finsbury, UK.Thompson repeated Röntgen’s experiments on the day afterthe discovery was announced in the UK and subsequentlygave the first public demonstration of the new rays at theClinical Society of London on 30 March 1896) instead.Skłodowska–Curie chose the same rapid means of publication.Her paper, giving a brief and simple account of herwork, was presented for her to the Académie on 12 April1898 by her former professor, Gabriel Lippmann [7, 37].Even so, just as S. Thompson had been beaten byBecquerel, so was Skłodowska–Curie in the race topublicize her discovery that thorium gives off rays in thesame way as uranium. Three weeks earlier, GerhardSchmidt had published his own findings in Berlin [31].At that time, however, no one else in the world ofPhysics had noticed what Skłodowska–Curie recorded inher paper, her description of how much greater theactivities of pitchblende and chalcolite were than that ofuranium itself: “The fact is very remarkable, and leads tothe belief that these minerals may contain an elementwhich is much more active than uranium.” She laterwould recall how she felt “a passionate desire to verifythis hypothesis as rapidly as possible” [4, 30]. PierreCurie was sure that what she had discovered was not just aspontaneous effect. He was so intrigued that he decided todrop his work on crystals temporarily and to join her inher research. On 14 April 1898, they optimisticallyweighed out a 100 gram sample of pitchblende andground it with a pestle and mortar ([7]. They did notrealize at the time that what they had been searching forwas present in such minute quantities that they eventuallywould have to process tons of the ore [26]. They were alsounaware of the dangerous effects of radiation exposure intheir work with radioactive substances; Skłodowska–Curieand her husband had no idea what price they would paydue to the effect of their research on their health [4].Polonium and radium discoveriesMaria and Pierre Curie continued systematic chemicalanalysis studies of uranium ores and discovered thatstrong activity came with the fraction containing bismuthor barium [25, 27]. When Maria continued her analysis ofthe bismuth fractions, she found that every time shemanaged to take away an amount of bismuth, a residuewith greater activity was left. At the end of June 1898,they had a substance that was about 300 times more activethan uranium [7]. In their work published on July 18,Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre wrote: “Wethus believe that the substance that we have extracted frompitchblende contains a metal never known before, akin tobismuth in its analytic properties. If the existence of thisnew metal is confirmed, we suggest that it should be calledpolonium after the name of the country of origin of one ofus” [9, 37]. She discussed the radioactive nature of poloniumin the paper and concluded that radioactivity is materialemission [32]. After another few months of work, on 26

B. SkwarzecDecember 1898, the Curies and Bémont announced theexistence of another element, which they named “radium”for its intense radioactivity— a word that they coined [10].The discovery of radium was confirmed by spectroscopicanalysis of barium chloride salt [13]. Pitchblende is acomplex mineral and the chemical separation of its constituentswas an arduous task. The discovery of polonium hadbeen relatively easy; chemically it resembles the elementbismuth, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance inthe ore. Radium, however, was more elusive [7]. It is closelyrelated, chemically, to barium, and pitchblende contains bothelements. By 1898–1899 Maria Skłodowska-Curie hadobtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminatedwith barium, still were beyond reach [35]. Insubsequent years she undertook the arduous task of separatingradium salt by differential crystallization [16, 17]. From a tonof pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride wasseparated in 1902 [18]. In an unusual decision, MariaSkłodowska–Curie intentionally refrained from patentingthe radium-isolation process, so that the scientific communitycould do research unhindered [30]. Henri Becquereldiscovered radiation, but the discovery of radium initiatedscientific discussion about a new opinion on the atomicstructure. Maria and Pierre Curie formulated a hypothesisabout the atomic transformation of polonium and radium andreached the conclusion that the ability to radiate did notdepend on the arrangement of atoms in a molecule [11, 12,16]. Maria drew the conclusion that it must be linked to theinterior of the atom itself; this discovery was absolutelyrevolutionary [15].Maria’s doctoral thesisFrom 1900 Maria had a part-time teaching post at the ÈcoleNormale Superieur de Sevres for Girls [4]. After thousands ofcrystallizations she finally isolated one decigram of almostpure radium chloride and had determined radium’s atomicweight as 225. She presented the finding of this work in herdoctoral thesis. On 25 of June 1903, under the supervision ofHenri Becquerel, Maria was awarded her DSc from theUniversity of Paris for her thesis entitled “Recherches sur lessubstances radioactives” [28].The examination committee: Gabriel Lippmann, HenriMoissan, and Edmond Bouty, expressed the opinion thatthe findings represented the greatest scientific contributionever made in a doctoral thesis [4].Radiological health problemMaria and Pierre Curie were invited to the Royal Institution inLondon, and Pierre, before the crowded auditorium, showedhow radium rapidly affected photographic plates wrapped inpaper, how the substance gave off heat; in the semi-darknesshe demonstrated the spectacular light effect. He describedmedical tests which involved wrapping a sample of radiumsalts in a thin rubber covering which he had bound to his armfor ten hours. He then studied the resulting wound, which dayby day increasingly came to resemble a burn. After 52 days, apermanent grey scar appeared. Pierre realized the possibilityof radium being used in the treatment of cancers. Pierre’sscarred hands shook so much that once he happened to spill alittle of the preparation and fifty years later the presence ofradioactivity was discovered on the premises and theparticular surface had to be cleaned [4, 7].Nobel prizesIn 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awardedPierre Curie, Maria Curie, and Henri Becquerel the NobelPrize in Physics, “in recognition of the extraordinary servicesthey have rendered by their joint research on the radiationphenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel [4].”Skłodowska–Curie and her husband were unable to go toStockholm to receive the prize in person, but they shared itsfinancial proceeds with needy acquaintances, includingstudents [30]. As a result of the Nobel Prize, Maria andPierre Curie suddenly became internationally famous. On 1October 1904, the Sorbonne gave Pierre a professorship andpermitted him to establish his own laboratory, in whichSkłodowska–Curie became the director of research. On 19April 1906, Pierre was killed in a street accident, he was runover by a horse-drawn wagon near the Pont Nuef in Paris[4]. Maria was devastated by the death of her husband, shewas left alone with two daughters, Irène aged 9 and Èveaged 2. Maria noted that, as of that moment she suddenlyhad become “an incurably and wretchedly lonely person”[7]. She was appointed to succeed Pierre as the head of thelaboratory, being undoubtedly the most suitable person, andto be responsible for his teaching duties. On 13 May 1906,the Sorbonne Physics department decided to retain the chairthat had been created for Pierre Curie and they entrusted it toSkłodowska–Curie together with full authority over thelaboratory. This allowed her to emerge from Pierre’s shadow[28]. On 16 November 1908, Maria was the first woman tobecome a professor at the Sorbonne, and in her exhaustingwork regime she sought a new meaning in her life [25]. Shewent on to produce four decigrams of very pure radiumchloride and determined radium’s precise atomic weight as226,45±0.5 (now 226.025) [19]. Finally, in collaborationwith Debierne, she was able to isolate radium in the metallicform [22]. At the same time Maria prepared new methods todetermine small amounts of radium by measurement ofradon [20, 23]. On September 1910, the International

Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934)Radiological Congress in Brussels invited Maria Curie toprepare international radium standards. In the next year MmeCurie delivered 21.99 mg of pure radium chloride to theBureau International des Poids et Mesures in Sevres [24]. ForMaria Curie, the proposal from the Radiological Congresscreated a new unit of radioactivity, the Curie (1 Ci isequilibrium with activity 1 g of radium). In 1911, MariaSkłodowska-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.The citation by the Nobel Committee was, “in recognitionof her services to the advancement of Chemistry by thediscovery of the elements radium and polonium; by theisolation of radium and the study of the nature andcompounds of this remarkable element” [4]. Maria’s Nobellecture on December 11 in Stockholm should be read in thelight of what she had gone through. She made it clear by herchoice of words what were unequivocally her contributions incollaboration with Pierre. She spoke of the field of researchwhich, “I have called radioactivity” and “my hypothesis thatradioactivity is an atomic property,” but without detractingfrom his contributions. She declared that she also regardedthis Prize as a tribute to Pierre Curie [7]. The Frenchgovernment funded the building of a private Radium Institute(Institut du Radium, now the Institut Curie), which was builtin 1914 and at which research in chemistry, physics, andmedicine was conducted [4]).Some researchers have questioned whether Maria deservedthe Prize for Chemistry in 1911 [27]. They have claimed thatthe discoveries of radium and polonium were part of thereason for the Prize in 1903, even though this was not statedexplicitly [15]. Maria was said to have been awarded thePrize again for the same discovery, the award possibly beingan expression of sympathy for reasons that will be mentionedlater [7]. Actually, however, the citation for the Prize in 1903was worded deliberately with a view to a future Prize inChemistry. Chemists considered that the discovery andisolation of radium was the greatest event in chemistry sincethe discovery of oxygen. For the first time in history it wasshown that an element could be transmuted into anotherelement, and that revolutionized chemistry and signified anew epoch [15].Skłodowska–Curie was the first person to win or sharetwo Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who havebeen awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, theother person being Linus Pauling (for chemistry and forpeace). Two Nobel Prizes have also been awarded to JohnBardeen in Physics (1956 and 1972) and Frederick Sangerin Chemistry (1958 and 1981).Rejected by the AcademyDespite the second Nobel Prize and an invitation to the firstSolvay Conference with the world’s leading physicists,including Einstein, Poincaré, and Planck, 1911 became a darkyear in Maria’slife[15]. In two smear campaigns she was toexperience the chauvinism of the French press. The firstcampaign was started on 16 November 1910, when, in anarticle in Le Figaro, it became known that she was willing tobe nominated for election to l’Académie des Sciences [4].Examples of factors other than merit influencing election tothe academy did exist, but Maria herself and her eminentresearch colleagues seemed to have considered that with herexceptionally brilliant scientific merits, her election was aforegone conclusion. As it turned out, it was not only meritthat was the deciding factor. The dark underlying currents ofanti-Semitism, prejudice against women, xenophobia, andeven anti-scientific attitudes that existed in French societycame welling up to the surface [15]. Normally the electionwas of no interest to the press. The most rabid paper was theultra-nationalistic and anti-Semitic L’Action Française,which was led by Léon Daudet, the son of the writerAlphonse Daudet. Dreyfus had obtained redress for thewrongs done to him in 1906 and had been decorated with theLegion of Honor, but in the eyes of the groups who had beenagainst him during his trial, he was still guilty, was still “theJewish traitor.” [4, 30]. The pro-Dreyfus groups who hadsupported his cause were suspect and the scientists who weresupporting Maria were among them. Jokes in bad tastealternated with outrageous accusations. It was said that in hercareer, Pierre’s research had given her a free ride. She camefrom Poland, though admittedly she was formally a Catholicbut her name Sklodowska indicated that she might be ofJewish origin, and so on. A week before the election, analternative candidate, Édouard Branly, was proposed. Thevote on January 23 1911 was taken in the presence ofjournalists, photographers, and hordes of the curious. Theelection took place in a tumultuous atmosphere. In the firstround Maria lost by one vote, in the second by two. In all,fifty-eight votes were cast [15]. A Nobel Prize in 1903 andsupport from prominent researchers such as Jean Perrin,Henri Poincaré, Paul Appell, and the permanent secretary ofthe Académie, Gaston Darboux, were not sufficient to makethe Académie open its doors. This event attracted internationalattention and indignation. It deeply wounded bothMaria and indeed Édouard Branly too, himself a wellmeritedresearcher [4].The Langevin AffairHowever, Maria’s tribulations were not at an end. When, atthe beginning of November 1911, Maria went to Belgium,being invited with the world’s most eminent physicists toattend the first Solvay Conference, she received a messagethat a new campaign had started in the press. Now it was amatter of her private life and her relations with her

B. Skwarzeccolleague Paul Langevin, who had also been invited to theconference [30]. He had had marital problems for severalyears and had moved from his suburban home to a smallapartment in Paris. Maria was depicted as the reason. Bothwere described in slanderous terms. The scandal developeddramatically. Maria standing up in her own defensemanaged to force an apology from the newspaper Le Temps[15]. The same day she received word from Stockholm thatshe had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry [4].However, the very newspapers that made her a legend whenshe received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, nowcompletely ignored the fact that she had been awarded thePrize in Chemistry or merely reported it in a few words onan inside page. The Langevin scandal escalated into aserious affair that shook the university world in Paris andthe French government at the highest level. Day after dayMaria had to run the gauntlet in the newspapers: an alien, aPolish woman, a researcher supported by our Frenchscientists, had come and stolen an honest French woman’shusband [15]. Henri Poincaré’s cousin, Raymond Poincaré,a senior lawyer who was to become President of France in afew years time, was engaged as advisor. But the scandalkept up its impetus with headlines on the first pages such as“Madame Curie, can she still remain a professor at theSorbonne?” With her daughters Maria stayed at Sceauxwhere she was practically a prisoner in her own home. Thedrama culminated on the morning of 23 November whenextracts from letters were published in the newspaperL’Oeuvre [38]. There was no proof of the accusations madeagainst Maria and the authenticity of the letters could bequestioned but in the heated atmosphere there were fewwho thought clearly [14].First World WarIn 1914, Maria was in the process of beginning to lead one ofthe departments in the Radium Institute established jointly bythe University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute. In August1914, Germany invaded France and Maria took her twodaughters, Irène aged 17 and Ève aged 10, to Brittany forsafety. She had another reason for her journey—with her wentaheavy,20kgleadcontainerinwhichshehadplacedhervaluable radium, which she left there before returning toBordeaux [15]. During the war Maria, with the help of herdaughter Irène, pushed for the use of mobile radiographyunits, which came to be popularly known as petites Curies(“Little Curies”), for the treatment of wounded soldiers andshe was engaged intensively in equipping more than 20 vansthat acted as mobile field hospitals and about 200 fixedinstallations with X-ray apparatus [7]. At the Radium Instituteshe prepared tiny glass tubes containing a radioactive gas(radon) that comes from minerals containing radium. Hospitaldoctors inserted the tiny tubes into patients at spots where theradiation would destroy diseased tissue [4]. Maria trainedyoung women in simple X-ray technology, she herself droveone of the vans and took an active part in locating metalsplinters. Sometimes she found she had to give the doctorslessons in elementary geometry. Irène, when 18, becameinvolved, and in the primitive conditions both of them wereexposed to large doses of radiation. In 1918, The RadiumInstitute, the staff of which Irène had joined, began to operatein earnest, and it was to become a universal centre for nuclearphysics and chemistry. Maria Curie, from 7 February 1922, amember of the Academy of Medicine, devoted her researchto the study of the chemistry of radioactive substances andthe medical applications of these substances [4].Maria in the USAIn 1921, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, accompanied by twoher daughters, was welcomed triumphantly when shetoured the United States to raise funds for research onradium. These distractions from her scientific labors andthe attendant publicity caused her much discomfort butprovided resources much needed for her work. Theprominent American female journalist Marie Maloneyorganized further collections for one gram of radium foran institute which Maria had helped found in Warsaw[15]. Thanks to the press coverage, Maria becameenormously popular in America, and everyone seemed towant to meet her—the great Madame Curie. During hersecond American tour in 1929 President Warren Hardingpresented her with a gram of radium bought as the resultsof a collection by American women. This radium wassuccessful in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute,founded in 1925 with her sister, Bronisława, as director [4].The last years of Maria’s lifeIn her later years, Maria Skłodowska-Curie headed thePasteur Institute and a radioactivity laboratory created forher by the University of Paris. She continued to doresearch on radioactivity, but her main focus shifted torunning the Radium Institute. She made the Institute acenter for measuring the radium content of variousproducts used by doctors and others. She also made ita world center for research, carefully selecting severaldozen scientists and keeping up with the progress ofeach. Her researchers made many discoveries [4]. In thelast ten years of her life, Maria had the joy of seeing herdaughter Irène and her son-in-law Frédéric Joliot carry outsuccessful research in the laboratory. She lived to see theirdiscovery of artificial radioactivity [21], but not to hear that

Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934)they had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it in1935. Maria Skłodowska–Curie visited Poland for the lasttime in the spring of 1934 and, only a few of months later,she died on 4 July 1934 at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium inPassy, in Haute-Savoie, eastern France, from aplastic anemia(leukemia), almost certainly contracted from exposure toradiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation werenot then known, and much of her work had been carried outin a shed, without proper safety measures. She had carriedtest tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket andstored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the prettyblue–green light that the substances gave off in the dark [7].She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside herhusband Pierre [4].EpilogueMaria Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie’s pioneeringresearch was again brought to the fore when on April 201995, their bodies were taken from their place of burial atSceaux, just outside Paris, and in a solemn ceremony werelaid to rest under the mighty dome of the Panthéon. MariaCurie thus became the first woman to be accorded this markof honor on her own merit. It was François Mitterrand,President of France who took this initiative, as he said “inorder to finally respect the equality of women and menbefore the law and in reality” (“pour respecter enfin....l’égalité des femmes et des hommes dans le droit commedans les faits”) [29]. In point of fact—as the press pointedout—this initiative was symbolic three times over. MariaSkłodowska-Curie was a woman, she was an immigrantand she had to a high degree that helped increase theprestige of France in the scientific world [15].Maria’s discoveries and her legendThe physical and social aspects of the work of the MariaSkłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie contributed substantiallyto shaping the world of the twentieth and twenty-firstcenturies. Maria’s new discoveries were revolutionary [15].Although admittedly the world did not decay, what theynevertheless did was in the classical, deterministic view ofthe world. Radioactive decay, that heat is given off from aninvisible and apparently inexhaustible source, that radioactiveelements are transformed into new elements just as inthe ancient dreams of alchemists of the possibility of makinggold, all these things contravened the most entrenchedprinciples of classical physics. For radioactivity to beunderstood, the development of quantum mechanics wasrequired. But it should be noted that the birth of quantummechanics was not initiated by the study of radioactivity butby Max Planck’s study of radiation from a black body in1900 [15]. It was an old field that was not the object of thesame interest and publicity as the new spectacular discoveries.It was not until 1928, more than a quarter of a centurylater, that the type of radioactivity that is called alpha-decaywas explained theoretically. It is an example of the tunneleffect in quantum mechanics. Cornell University Professor L.Pearce Williams observes: “The result of the Curies’ work wasepoch-making. Radium’s radioactivity was so great that itcould not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle ofthe conservation of energy and therefore forced a reconsiderationof the foundations of physics. On the experimental levelthe discovery of radium provided men like Ernest Rutherfordwith sources of radioactivity with which they could probe thestructure of the atom. As a result of Rutherford’s experimentswith alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was first postulated. Inmedicine, the radioactivity of radium appeared to offer a meansby which cancer could be successfully attacked” [26]. If thework of Maria Skłodowska–Curie helped overturn establishedideas in physics and chemistry, it has had an equallyprofound effect in the social sphere. To attain her scientificachievements, she had to overcome barriers that were placedin her way because she was a woman, in both her native andher adoptive country [14]. She was ahead of her time,emancipated, independent, and in addition uncorrupted.Albert Einstein is reported to have remarked that she wasprobably the only person who was not corrupted by the famethat she had won.From the most famous of all women scientists, MariaSkłodowska-Curie is notable for her many firsts [15]:&&&&&&&She was the first to use the term “radioactivity” for thisphenomenon. She was the first woman in Europe toreceive her doctorate of science.In 1903, she became the first woman to win a NobelPrize for Physics. The award, jointly awarded to Curie,her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel, was for thediscovery of radioactivity.She was also the first female lecturer, professor, and headof Laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1906).In 1911, she won an unprecedented second Nobel Prize(this time in chemistry) for her discovery and isolationof pure radium and radium components. She was thefirst person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes.She was the first mother-Nobel Prize Laureate of adaughter-Nobel Prize Laureate. Her oldest daughter IrèneJoliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1935).She is the first woman who has been laid to rest under thefamous dome of the Pantheon in Paris for her own merits.She received 15 gold medals, 19 degrees, and other honors.Maria Skłodowska-Curie’s work initiated the birth of quitenew branches of science, which are now called radiochemistry,radiation chemistry, radioanalytical methods etc.

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