Marie Skłodowska Curie’s revolutionary research laid the groundwork for our understanding of physics and chemistry, blazing trails in oncology, technology, medicine, and nuclear physics, to name a few. But what did she actually do? Shohini Ghose expounds on some of Marie Skłodowska Curie’s most revolutionary discoveries.

1. The genius of Marie Curie - Shohini Ghose
https://youtu.be/w6JFRi0Qm_s
Marie Skłodowska Curie’s revolutionary research laid the groundwork for our
understanding of physics and chemistry, blazing trails in oncology, technology,
medicine, and nuclear physics, to name a few. But what did she actually do? Shohini
Ghose expounds on some of Marie Skłodowska Curie’s most revolutionary discoveries.
1.- Which scientist’s discovery of mysterious radiation from uranium first sparked
Marie Curie’s interest?
A Pierre Curie
B Henri Becquerel
C Alfred Nobel
D Albert Einstein
2.- Why did Marie Curie believe that the radiation from thorium was emitted from
inside the atoms of the element?
A The radiation strength was affected by chemical changes in thorium
B The radiation strength was affected by physical changes in thorium
C The radiation was unaffected by chemical or physical changes and only
depended on the quantity of thorium
D The radiation strength was not affected by chemical changes, physical changes
or the quantity of thorium
3.- How did the Curies discover new elements in pitchblende?
A They realized that pitchblende was highly radioactive and that uranium alone
could not be the source of all the radiation
B They noticed that pitchblende glows in the dark
C They used several tons of pitchblende to observe that pitchblende is too heavy
to consist only of uranium
D They used special pitchblende from Poland and named it polonium

2. 4.- What new elements did Marie and Pierre Curie discover?
A Uranium and polonium
B Radium and polonium
C Radium and uranium
D Radium and thorium
5.- In 1911, what unique milestone did Marie Curie achieve?
A She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize
B She became the first female Professor at the Sorbonne
C She became the first woman to win 2 Nobel prizes in physics
D She became the only person, male or female, to win two Nobel prizes in two
different sciences to date
6.- Discuss the challenges Marie Curie faced in her career.
7.- What are some positive impacts of Dr. Curie’s discoveries?
8.- Are there harmful impacts of Dr. Curie’s discoveries?
Dr. Marie Curie transformed science and society with her discoveries. Her
scientific partnership with Pierre Curie and the story of their heroic efforts that
led to the discovery of polonium and radium are legendary. Despite her scientific
contributions and winning her first Nobel prize in 1903, as a woman and an
immigrant, she was not elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1911. She
also faced vicious and xenophobic attacks from the press for an alleged affair with
the scientist Paul Langevin. That year she won her second Nobel prize, but she
never again applied for membership in the Academy. Read her Nobel lecture here.
When war broke out in 1914, Dr. Curie and her daughter Irène helped to equip vans
with X-ray technology for medical use, and she herself drove one of the vans, which
soldiers called ‘petite Curies’. After the war, she worked for the rest of her career
at her Radium Institute, which became a world-leading centre under her leadership.
She visited the US twice and in 1921 she received a gift 1 gram of radium, worth a
small fortune, from US President Warren Harding on behalf of the women of

3. America. Watch a video of the event here. Dr. Curie’s studies of radioactivity laid
the foundations for modern cancer treatment.
The Curie family was truly distinguished. Not only were Pierre and Marie Curie
Nobel laureates, but their daughter Irène and son-in-law Frédéric Joliot also
shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935 for their synthesis of new radioactive
elements. Their younger daughter Eve wrote a bestselling book about her mother’s
extraordinary life. A movie based on the book was released in 1943, but for a slice
of real history, watch Dr. Curie at work in her lab here.
Find out more about the elements Radium and Polonium in these TED Ed lessons
about these elements.
Font (typeface) used in the animation: Neacademia by Rosetta Type.
DISCUSS
What can we learn from Marie Curie’s life and career?