Marie Curie A Pioneering Physicist Essay Research

Marie Curie: A Pioneering Physicist Essay, Research Paper

Marie Curie: A Pioneering Physicist

Aspirations come from hopes and dreams only a dedicated person can conjure up. They can range from passing the third grade to making the local high school football team. Marie Curie’s aspirations, however, were much greater.

Life in late 19th century Poland was rough. Being a female in those days wasn’t a walk in the park either. Marie Curie is recognized in history by the name she took in her adopted country, France. Born in Poland in 1867, she was christened Manya Sklodowska. In the year of her birth, Poland was ruled by the neighboring Russia; no Pole could forget it, or at least anyone involved in education, as both Manya’s parents were. Manya’s mother was a headmistress of a girls’ school. The Russians insisted that Polish schools teach the Russian language and Russian history. The Poles had to teach their children their own

language and history in secrecy.

Manya enjoyed learning but her childhood was always overshadowed by depression. At the young age of six, her father lost his job and her family became very poor. In the same year of 1873, her mother died of tuberculosis. As if that wasn’t enough tragedy for the family already, two of her sisters died of typhus as well. Her oldest sister, Bronya, had to leave school early to take care of the family. Despite all these hardships and setbacks, Manya continued to work hard at school.

Although her sister Bronya had stopped going to school to act as the family’s housekeeper, she desperately wanted to go on studying to become a doctor. This was almost impossible in Poland, however. In Poland, women were not allowed to go to college. Many Poles took the option to flee from Russian rule and live in France; this is exactly what Bronya did. She had set her heart on going to Paris to study at the famous Sorbonne University (The University of Paris). The only problem now was that she had no money to get there.

Manya and Bronya agreed to help each other attain their educations. Manya got a job as a governess and sent her earnings to support Bronya in Paris. Then, when Bronya could afford it, she would help Manya with her schooling and education in return. Manya went to live in a village called Szczuki with a family called Zorawski. Aside from teaching the two children of the family for seven hours a day, she organized lessons for her own benefit as well. Manya spent her evenings, late evenings, and even mornings devouring books on mathmatics and science.

Bronya finished her studies and married a Polish doctor, Casimir Dluski. They invited Manya to live with them in Paris while she went to college. Manya didn’t want to leave her country and most importantly, her family. Her eagerness for the quest of knowledge overcame her fear of the unknown, nonetheless. She travelled to Paris in an open railroad car on a trip that lasted three days in the Polish winter. She arrived safely to her long-since- childhood dream, the city of Paris. Manya Sklodowska quickly became Marie.

While Marie improved her French, she stayed with Bronya and her husband. They lived more than an hour away from the university. Marie wanted to be nearer to her work, so she eventually ended up moving out of her sister’s home and into a single cold damp room, eating only enough to keep her alive. Fortunate enough for a scholarship, Marie was able to go on studying until she had completed two courses. In her final exam-inations, she came in first in the subject of mathematics and second in physics. By 1894, at the age of 27, Marie had acquired not one, but two degrees from France’s top university and also became a totally fluent speaker of the French language.

Marie had always ruled love and marriage out of her life’s program. She was obsessed by her dreams, harassed by poverty, and over driven by intensive work. Nothing else counted; nothing else existed. She did, however, meet a young man every day at Sorbonne and at the laboratory. Marie and her destiny actually met on coincidence. Marie needed somewhere to conduct her experiments for research ordered by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry. The lab at Sorbonne was too crowded with students, in addition to not having the right equipment. A friend of hers suggested a friend’s laboratory. His name was Pierre Curie. Marie soon completed her commitment to her adopted country by

marrying this Frenchman.

Marie and Pierre Curie got married in 1895. The two of them combined probably made up the best team of scientists ever. Pierre had made important discoveries about magnetism. Marie decided to follow this up by looking at the magnetic properties of steel. In the same year of their marriage, a German scientist by the name of Wilhelm Roentgen made an accidental discovery. He found that certain substances produced rays of energy that would pass through soft materials as opposed to hard materials. Due to the fact that scientists often use the symbol “x” to stand for anything unknown, he called his mysterious discovery the “x-ray.” The x-ray was more than an amusing puzzle. By directing x-rays and photographic film at a solid object that consisted of both soft and hard substances a positive image can be made of the hard substance. A prime example would be the human body. This discovery now made it possible to look inside