HISTORY
Eighteen years after discovering radium, she herself could no longer afford to buy a gram of radium for research. But this did not prevent her from becoming an immortal monument in the history of world science.
Maria Salomeya Skvodowska was born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland (then a Russian territory), and she has since become known as Marie Curie.
Marie Curie occupies an unusual place in the male-dominated field of science. She was a pioneer in radioactivity research, the first woman to receive a doctorate in science, the first female professor at a French university, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman currently to win two Nobel Prizes (physics, chemistry) ...
Under such a dazzling eye, what kind of person is she?
Mary was born in Xiang mendi, and her grandfather, father, and mother were all teachers. The originally well-to-do family, due to the bankruptcy of their parents' participation in the Polish independence movement, had to struggle.
At that time, the Russian authorities cancelled experimental teaching in Polish schools, and the father, who was also a teacher of mathematics and physics, and the father, who was the director of the school, brought home a large number of experimental equipment to teach the children. Mary thus received a full scientific education.
When it came time to apply for college, Mary was rejected. In Poland at the time, women were discriminated against and excluded from universities. Mary could only choose to enroll in an underground educational institution called the "University of the Air.".
While saving money as a tutor, and discussing self-study through extensive reading and correspondence, Mary successfully entered the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. At this school, Marie often starved several times due to poverty, eventually earning a degree in physics and chemistry, and it was also here that Marie met her later husband, the physicist Pierre Curie.
The "Cinderella" finally met her own prince and lived a happy life ever since.
In 1902, the Curie couple extracted 1/10 g of pure radium chloride from a few tons of asphalt oil mines, which was a huge breakthrough at the time. In 1903, the Curies and Becquerel jointly won the Nobel Prize.
The aristocratic scientist Becquerel said at the time: "Marie Curie's contribution was to serve as a good assistant to Pierre Curie, which gives us reason to believe that God created women to be the best assistants to cooperate with men." ”
Mr. and Mrs. Curie
But in reality, these research ideas are Marie Curie's own. To ensure that the facts are conclusive, she recorded the incident twice in her husband's biography. It's likely that Mary realized early in her career that many scientists have a hard time believing that a woman is capable of participating in this kind of original research in which she is involved.
"In a world where men make the rules, they believe that a woman's function is sex and procreation." Marie Curie later said to her daughter.
After the death of her husband Pierre in a car accident, Marie Curie took over her husband's teaching position at the Sorbonne University in Paris, becoming the first female professor here.
Pierre died in a car accident in the eleventh year of her marriage to Marie, and Marie Curie fell into a low point in her life. Later, another famous scientist, Paul Lang zhiwan, entered Mary's world, and the two fell in love.
Lang Zhiwan was also a rather remarkable scientist, five years younger than Mary, who walked with her during her most difficult times and became her new lover, partner and career collaborator.
The problem, however, is that Lang zhiwan was already married when he fell in love with Mary—he married the daughter of a ceramic worker.
It is said that this woman was rude and barbaric, and once broke Lang Zhiwan's head in an argument, and she also despised Lang Zhiwan's research work because she could not bring cash. Lang Zhiwan tried to divorce several times, but failed.
Once, Mary's love letters to him were discovered by his wife, who directly sent them to the newspaper and made them public. In one fell swoop, it triggered the famous "Leaked Nude Photos" incident in Paris in the 20th century.
Lang Zhiwan (left) and Marie Curie (right)
On November 4, 1911, the Paris Press published an article entitled "Love Story: Marie Curie and Professor Lang Zhiwan", which was full of storms in the city. Mary was subjected to numerous humiliations, insults, and even threats. Faced with enormous pressure from public opinion, Mary had to take her children to live with her friends to take refuge.
Only because she, in correspondence with her lover, shows that she has a strong sexual need and tries to be satisfied. Thus, Marie Curie was nailed to such a term: Polish slut.
Also the protagonist of this extramarital affair, Lang Zhiwan was not affected. After successfully inciting public opinion and destroying Marie Curie, Lang's wife agreed to have another female secretary as a lover, thus saving the marriage.
As the people who supported and defended Marie Curie said, if she were a man, none of this would have happened.
Marie Curie in the lab
Marie Curie lived in poverty when she was young, and someone once donated a small sum of money to Marie Curie to support her studies in Paris. After graduation, she had just begun to earn money, barely able to make ends meet, and immediately returned the money.
After years of hard work finally refining "radium", some people advised the Curie couple to apply for a patent from the government and monopolize the manufacture of radium to make a fortune. Marie Curie said: "The results of scientists' research should be published publicly".
In order not to hinder scientific research, she deliberately did not patent the separation method of radium. After the successful extraction of radium, the Curies also donated the Nobel Prize they received to the scientific research institutions they received, but they did not take anything; she and her husband often refused awards and medals.
During World War I, she established a mobile radiation center and investigated the effects of radiation on tumors, making a significant contribution to the world and saving countless patients.
But the benefits of all humanity are accompanied by great personal sacrifices. While serving in a field hospital, Marie Curie suffered from a variety of chronic diseases due to her long-term exposure to X-rays, but she did not know until her death that X-rays were the culprits of her death.
She dedicated herself to science, laying a solid foundation for many subsequent scientific studies, including physics and chemistry, and she also opened up new fields such as oncology, technical technology, pharmacy, and nuclear physics.
Eventually, Marie Curie died of excessive exposure to radioactive materials and pernicious anemia.
1. "Of all the famous people I know, Marie Curie is the only one who has not been turned upside down by fame."
— Albert Einstein
2. "The work of the Curies is epoch-making. The radioactivity of radium is so pronounced that we cannot ignore it. This phenomenon seems to violate the law of conservation of energy, which forces physicists to rethink this foundation of physics. At the experimental level, the discovery of radium provided a radioactive source for Rutherford et al. to probe atomic structures. Rutherford's scattering experiments using α radiation confirmed the existence of atomic nuclei for the first time. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium provides a possible way to successfully subdue cancer. ”
—Leslie Pierce Williams, a professor at Cornell University