Did we read a fake Marie Curie?
She and her husband discovered radium, a radioactive element 100 times more radioactive than uranium, and won the Nobel Prize.
In fact, radium was the first thing she discovered, but she was not in the Nobel Prize nomination, and in the end it was her husband Pierre Curie who won it for her.
She and her husband have an enviable scientific research love for scientific research, and have won the Nobel Prize twice.
However, Marie Curie's husband died very early, and Marie Curie was almost expelled from France because of a new relationship.
But she did five things for France, impressed the French, and finally rehabilitated her.
01
Marie Skłodowska was born into a Polish family of teachers. Mary, 22, and her friends went to the experimental base of an agricultural museum, where interesting physics and chemistry experiments planted a seed of scientific research in her heart.
At the age of 24, with the help of her sister, she was successfully admitted to the Physics Department of the University of Paris.
Mary studied very hard, and every day she would come to the classroom early and sit in the first row closest to the teacher. During her time in college, she contracted all the scholarships, which often made her classmates envious and the teachers amazed.
At the age of 29, Marie passed the title examination of the Paris School of Physics and Chemistry with the first place and obtained the qualification to stay in the school to teach.
But Mary's dream had always been to work in the research room. Introduced by a fellow countryman, she entered Pierre Curie's laboratory and met Pierre Curie, who was already famous at the age of 35.
After the first acquaintance, the two developed a fondness for each other, and Pierre often sent Mary books to discuss scientific research issues with her. After getting along, Marie admired Pierre Curie's enthusiasm for scientific research, and Pierre Curie also admired Marie's dedication to scientific research. There is a sense of seeing each other and hating each other.
After a year of acquaintance, 27-year-old Marie and 36-year-old Pierre entered the palace of marriage. Since then, Marie has been known as "Marie Curie" and has become a French citizen.
After marriage, they bought two bicycles and rode them to their honeymoon.
The newly married Curies went on a trip by bicycle
Pierre Curie learned that his wife was studying radioactive materials, so he improved her instruments and joined her experiments.
Two years later, the Curies announced that they had discovered a highly radioactive substance, "radium." After this announcement, the scientific community immediately fried the pan.
Everyone asked Madame Curie and his wife to take out a radium and feast their eyes.
But at this time, Marie Curie only found out, and did not refine pure radium. Refining pure radium requires a lot of time and money to support.
In order to refine pure radium, the Curies sold their RV for more than a dozen tons of bitumen uranium slag, which to outsiders seemed crazy.
They can't socialize, they can't go back to their mother's house, they refuse a better salary offer, and they go to other schools to take classes part-time to make a living. It took two years, countless experiments were done, and 32 reports were published. Finally, the Curies came to Britain with 10 grams of radium chloride extracted from more than a dozen tons of uranium slag, which shocked the entire scientific research community.
Everyone finally felt that they were not crazy, but people who were obsessed with scientific research.
Although radium is not the earliest radioactive material discovered by humans, radium is the most radioactive substance, and it can even be applied to medicine.
Such a major discovery, of course, is indispensable to the care of the Nobel Prize. However, there was no Marie Curie in the 1903 Nobel Prize nomination in physics, but her husband and a scientist named Anthony Henry Becquerel.
Born into a family of scientists and famous in France, Becquerle was the first to discover natural radioactivity in 1896, only to learn that it was only fluorescence.
It turned out that Becquerel was credited with the discovery of natural radioactivity, but he did not make any significant contributions in subsequent research or theory.
For the conceptual and theoretical study of radioactive materials, Marie Curie was the real pioneer, and her husband Pierre was her assistant.
Finally, in the nomination, at the strong insistence of her husband Pierre Curie, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In any case, this award also established Marie Curie's position in the scientific community.
02
With this Nobel Prize, the Curies did not have to struggle with their livelihood while doing experiments and working part-time. They can focus on experimentation.
Unfortunately, Pierre Curie died in a car accident while outing.
On that day, the 39-year-old Marie Curie held her two children, crying in the dark, and the road ahead was confused and lonely.
Marie Curie and two children
Just when her life was in the abyss, a man named Paul Lang zhiwan came to her side, he was 5 years younger than Marie Curie, a student of Pierrey, and in Marie Curie's eyes he was a very talented scientist.
Lang Zhiwan became a new member of the Marie Curie Institute, and because of their similar interests, the two also developed into good friends. Marie Curie went to the Sorbonne University to apply, and when Lang Zhiwan learned about it, he helped her prepare the materials in advance. When Marie Curie was tired from the experiment, Lang Zhiwan handed her a dessert.
Lang Zhiwan's enthusiasm made Marie Curie's dead heart rekindle.
But Lang Zhiwan is a family man, but he told Marie Curie that his wife had a low education, did not understand himself, always forced himself to make more money, and persuaded himself not to do scientific research, which made him very painful, and he decided to divorce her.
Madame Curie calmly interacted with Lang Zhiwan. Lang Zhiwan moved out of the house, rented a small house next to the Sorbonne University in Paris, and began to live with Marie Curie.
Marie Curie and Lang Zhiwan
The following year, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She became a two-time Nobel Prize-winning female scientist.
On the one hand, it is a career of fame and fortune, and on the other hand, it is a sweet love. Just when Marie Curie was still intoxicated with happiness, something big happened that shattered her passion.
When Lang Zhiwan threw a divorce agreement to his wife Jenny, Jenny not only disagreed but also launched a crazy revenge, she exposed Marie Curie's love letter to Lang Zhiwan to the French media.
Suddenly, the love affair between Marie Curie and Lang Zhiwan caused a sensation in the entire French scientific community, even more sensational than her Nobel Prize. Some tabloid media even maliciously speculated whether they were already well when Pierre was alive.
Some indiscriminate Frenchmen began attacking Marie Curie's house, stoned her window glass and shouting for her to get out of France. Public opinion pushed Marie Curie to the cusp of the storm.
She is no longer a respected scientist, but a third person who has stepped into someone else's marriage.
There are even tabloid media who add fuel to the fire and expose a love letter that cannot distinguish between true and false. The blunt and nudity of the content has made Marie Curie the laughing stock of many people after dinner.
Even Paul Appel, a comrade-in-arms who worked with Marie Curie on scientific research, asked her to get out of France.
At this time, his friend Albert Einstein wrote a letter of solidarity to Marie Curie: "If two people fall in love, no one has the right to interfere." ”
With the support of her friend Albert Einstein, Marie Curie seems to have more energy to resist the pressure of public opinion. She was ready to tell Lang Zhiwan that she was willing to face him hand in hand.
At this time, Lang Zhiwan returned to his wife like a shrunken-headed turtle, and even interacted with a female student with his wife's permission.
Marie Curie instantly felt like eating flies. Madame Curie,Rémy Curie's intestines were repentant, and she had to lick her wounds alone and live in the convent for three years. During these three years, she calmed down and recuperated while continuing her beloved scientific research career.
03
In 1914, because of the war, people gradually forgot Marie Curie's gossip "love". Marie Curie, confronted with the Frenchman who stoned the window of her house and made her roll, she actually did five things:
First, she donated her Nobel Prize to the French government. Second, she shut down her "radium experiment studio" and began working on X-rays in the hope of coming in handy for war. Third, she applied to become a radiologist at the French Red Cross. Fourth, persuade your rich friends to donate money and cars. Fifth, the 47-year-old took her driver's license, drove her own car, risked her life, and went to the front line to examine the wounded soldiers.
Under the illumination of Marie Curie's X-body line, bullet fragments and howitzer fragments were clearly visible in the body of the wounded soldier, which greatly reduced the difficulty of surgery.
The officers and soldiers looked at the small woman in front of her, who was capable, could shoot X-rays, and could drive a truck, and they all looked at her with admiration and affectionately called her "Little Man Curie."
As the number of wounded increased, she enlisted the help of her daughter when she could not take care of herself, and opened an X-ray training class of 150 people on the battlefield to start training X-ray operators.
Marie Curie is training X-rays
Until the end of the war, Marie Curie, 67, suffered from malignant leukemia due to prolonged exposure to radiation and died soon after.
Time will clarify everything, and after her death, the French government finally discovered that it was her X-ray research that had made a great contribution to the rescue of hundreds of thousands of wounded French soldiers, so it posthumously awarded her a medal of honor.
People no longer cared about her unbearable private life, but admired her dedication to science.
Albert Einstein said: "Of all the world celebrities, Marie Curie is the only one who has not been spoiled by fame. ”
With a Nobel Prize and teaching at a university, she can live a carefree and comfortable life. But she did not, but chose the battlefield, elevating scientific research from theory to actual combat.
Although everything she did was not immediately rewarded, in the end time gave her a satisfactory answer.
There is no road in vain in life, and every step is counted.
Marie Curie's story is not only the story of a female scientist, but also a female inspirational history.