Welcome to CWP at UCLA 

86 Eminent Physicists



Search the Archive


Fascinating Documents


Annotated Photo Gallery


In Her Own Words


Some Physics History


500+ Books and Articles


Project Staff


Field Editors


Project Support


Photo Credits


Copyright Notice

Nuclear Physics

Contributions
Publications
Honors
Picture of Marie Curie

Marie Sklodowska Curie

1867-1934

Jobs/Positions
Education
Additional Information
    Marie Sklodowska Curie's life and work have been written about extensively. There are excellent references available. Rather than try to summarize that information here, we give a recommended reading list below and a link to the AIP Center for the History of Physics site.

    In keeping with the format of this archive, we cite below the first three great discovery papers. She is sole author of the first paper identifying herself as S. Curie. The second paper was written with her husband Pierre who left his research on metals to join her studies of radioactivity.

First Important Contributions and Publications:

  • Initiated systematic studies of natural radioactivity.

      "Radiations from Compounds of Uranium and of Thorium," Comptes Rendus 126: 1101 (1898).

    Conjectured the radiation, which Henri Becquerel called uranic rays, emanated from atoms of uranium, and deduced from quantitative studies of the radioactivity of samples of coal and pitchblende that there were other radioactive elements besides uranium. She coined the word radioactive. With Pierre Curie, she discovered radium, polonium, and other heretofore unknown radioactive elements.

      "New Radio-Active Element in Pitchblende," Comptes Rendus 127: 175 (1898) with P. Curie.

      "Another New Radio-active Element," Comptes Rendus 127: 1215 (1898) with P. Curie and G. Bémont.

    [Click here for her personal account of these discoveries.]

    Some Important Honors:

    Nobel Prize (physics) with Pierre Curie 1903

      for "joint researches on the radiation phenomenon discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."

    Humphrey Davy Medal with Pierre Curie 1903

    Nobel Prize (chemistry) 1911

      for "discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."

    Recommended reading:

    The discovery of radium and radioactivity in her own words.

    Reference material on Marie Curie, her life and her work, is readily available; some books in which one may read about the significance of her discoveries for physics, and her life, are:

    Pasachoff, Naomi Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity , Oxford University Press, 1966.

    Pais, Abraham Inward bound: of matter and forces in the physical world, Oxford University Press, New York 1986.

    McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch Nobel Prize women in science: their lives, struggles, and momentous discoveries ,Birch Lane Press, New York 1993.

    Quinn, Susan Marie Curie: A life, Simon & Schuster, New York 1995.

    Curie, Eve Madame Curie, Doubleday, 1938. Reprint. Da Capo, 1986.

    Recommended link:   MARIE CURIE AND THE SCIENCE OF RADIOACTIVITY

    Copyright © CWP and Regents of the University of California 1997.
  • To cite this citation:
    " Curie, Marie Sklodowska." CWP
    < http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp>

    BACK TO THE TOP