Pierre and Marie Curie set about working to search for the unknown element. Marie was convinced she had found a new chemical element – other scientists doubted her results. Since nobody had ever found it before, it could only be present in tiny quantities, and it seemed to be very radioactive. Further work convinced her the very large readings she was getting could not be caused by uranium alone – there was something else in the pitchblende. Marie also noticed that samples of a mineral called pitchblende, which contains uranium ore, were a great deal more radioactive than the pure element uranium. He had shown that the rays were able to pass through solid matter, fog and photographic film and caused air to conduct electricity. The Curies became research workers at the School of Chemistry and Physics in Paris and there they began their pioneering work into invisible rays given off by uranium – a new phenomenon which had recently been discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel. It is of course this version of her name that our charity uses, along with our hospices, Marie Curie Nursing Service and our Marie Curie Helper service. It was also around this time that she adopted the French spelling of her name – Marie. It was in Paris, in 1894, that she met Pierre Curie – a scientist working in the city – and who she married a year later. She immediately entered Sorbonne University in Paris where she read physics and mathematics – she had naturally discovered a love of the subjects through her insatiable appetite for learning. However, when her sister offered her lodgings in Paris with a view to going to university, she grasped the opportunity and moved to France in 1891.
To become a teacher – the only alternative which would allow her to be independent – was never a possibility because a lack of money prevented her from a formal higher education. Born Maria Sk łodowska on 7 November 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, she was the youngest of five children of poor school teachers.Īfter her mother died and her father could no longer support her she became a governess, reading and studying in her own time to quench her thirst for knowledge.
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