Marie Skloodowska Research Paper

Marie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska on the 7th of september 1867. She was a polish chemist and physicist who had pioneered research on radioactivity, she was the first woman to receive a nobel prize and later died due to her research. Though, before any of this happened she was the youngest child of née Boguska and Władysław Skłodowski two teachers from Bronisława who lost all their property and fortunes in the Polish national uprisings to restore Poland’s independence from the Russian Empire at the time, condemning her family to financial struggles. Marie still was able to attend a prestigious gymnasium for girls and leave with a gold medal, she then returned to the country with her father because of emotional depression, once back in Poland, she proceeded to tutor. Unable to continue her education due to her gender she and her sister eventually managed to get involved with the Clandestine Flying University which accepted female students. She then waited for two years to attend a chemical laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture in Krakowskie Przedmieście. She would later move to Paris and study at the University of Paris, she began her scientific career with an investigation on magnetic properties of different steels financed by the Société D'encouragement Pour L'industrie Nationale or, The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry and, it was later that year that she met the husband to be, Pierre Curie, they married and Marie attempted to return to Poland and get a job teaching in her chosen field, but, to no avail she returned to paris. Pierre would later receive a doctorate for his studies on magnetism discoveries made by Wilhelm Roentgen in x-rays and Henri Becquerelon in uranium salts emitting x-ray like rays and, that unlike phosphorescence it did not need an outside energy input to occur and, was observed to happen for no reason. She decided to pursue a doctorate based on a thesis she was inspired to form from these discoveries. With this she had used an electrometer that Pierre invented fifteen years previously, she discovered that the air around the uranium had conducted electricity. From this, she found that the amount of rays was dependant only on the quantity of the uranium present she hypothesised that the radiation was coming not from the uranium atoms but from within the atoms themselves, this hypothesis did a great service to the undoing of ancient idea that atoms were indivisible. In the later years following this she had a child and, to support her family she began teaching at the École Normale Supérieure, a school in Paris without a dedicated laboratory, most of her research was done in a shed adjacent to the school. …show more content…
The school did not sponsor her research, however she received funding from various mining and metallurgical companies and organizations. In her studies on the mysterious rays on the minerals pitchblende and torbernite (chalcolite), the electrometer displayed that the pitchblende was four times as active as uranium and that torbernite was twice as active than uranium she believed that these minerals contained a substance much more active than uranium alone. This led her on a meticulous and refined search for other radioactive elements, in this search, she deduced that thorium was also radioactive. Her husband Pierre was extremely interested in her work, so much so that he later dropped his work on crystals and joined her. At this time in the field of research she took part in, not a single person or scientist noticed what Curie was doing in her shed and …show more content…
Aswell in spite of her work and help in humanitarian contributions to the French war effort, she had never received any formal recognition from the French. Though, following the war, her life took to an almost political form. She traveled to the United States in 1920 to raise money for the research of radium. The next year, the current United States President, Warren Harding had presented her with a 1 gram sample of radium, only just then realizing she had no French official distinctions, which embarrassed her. The French government responded by offering her a Legion of Honour award, she