In 1920, in Warsaw – Poland, a really important person, who would revolutionize the sciences, was born, specifically chemistry and physics. Her name was Marie Curie, a woman who earned a great distinction of being the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first scientist to earn two Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.
Marie Curie had a great passion for science since she was a child. She had a lot of problems since, pursuing a career in science as a woman, carried a considerable stigma at that time. However, she never gave up. She persisted with adversities and eventually signed up at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where she decided she would study physics and chemistry.
She met her husband, Pierre Curie, in 1894, who had the same interest in science.
They decided to work together and focused their attention on the phenomenon of radioactivity, a term they coined to describe an emission of radiation from certain elements. Furthermore, they led careful experimentation and scientific research and discovered two new radioactive elements, Polonium, named after Marie’s country, and Radium.
It was a great time for science and their discovery was not ignored. In 1903, she became the first woman to win a Physics Nobel Prize, an exceptional achievement shared with her husband and the physicist Henri Becquerel. Then, another amazing event happened. She received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, due to her achievement in isolating the elements Radium and Polonium.
Although she faced a lot of personal and professional challenges throughout her life, including the devastating loss of her husband in a laboratory accident. Marie was persistent, and she continued working in her field, making significant contributions to science until her death in 1934.
The legacy of Curie’s work is undeniable. Her perseverance, curiosity and scientific discoveries contributed not only to our understanding of the natural world but to humanity’s will to discover new features about our world, becoming a source of inspiration for generations of scientists and people interested in science and technology.
by Mr. Diego Ubaque
