Madame Marie Curie Presented By Mr S Arumugam

Madame Marie Curie Presented By Mr. S. Arumugam Assistant Professor NMC Puthanampatti

Early Life • Born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland • Given name was Marya Sklodowska, but her family and friends called her “Little Manya”

Early Life cont. • Her father was a professor of math and physics • Her mother was a pianist, singer, and teacher • Her mother died of tuberculosis when Marya was 11

Schooling • Graduated high school when she was 15 • In 1891 she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris as “Marie” and graduated in 1893

Pierre • She married Pierre Curie in July 1895

Thesis Work • She decided that her thesis for her doctorate would be on Henri Becquerel’s mysterious “xrays” that are given off by uranium

Work with Uranium • Discovered that if you have a certain amount of uranium, then you get a certain amount of ray intensity, no matter what you did to the material

Uranium Continued • Marie discovered that there was something going on inside the atom that created the rays, she named this effect “radioactivity”

Radioactivity • She discovered that the only known elements that were radioactive were uranium and thorium

Polonium • Pierre stopped his work on crystals to work with Marie • Marie continued her work, but with a different substance, pitchblende

Polonium Cont. • In July 1898 they extracted a new element that was even more radioactive than uranium • They called this new substance polonium in honor of Marie’s homeland

Radium • In January of 1899 another new element was discovered that was over 1 million times more radioactive than uranium, it was named radium

Radium Continued • In 1910 Marie isolated pure radium metal • Her major studies showed that radium gave out light and heat, as well as being able to damage living flesh

Radium cont. • In order to obtain one decigram of pure radium chloride salt, Marie had to sift through hundreds of tons of pitchblende

Properties of Radium • Radium is silverwhite in color • Today it is used in small amounts as a cancer treatment and in fluorescent paint

Pierre’s Death • Pierre Curie was killed tragically by a horse-drawn cart in 1906

Teaching • It was decided that Marie should take over Pierre’s teaching job at the Sorbonne in 1906 • This made Marie the 1 st woman professor at any French university

Paris Radium Institute • In 1907 Marie convinced the French government to fund a radium research institute, to be used mainly for medical research

Health Problems • Marie believed that working with radium was not a danger to her health, however, doctors today have proven that she was very wrong

Health cont. • In 1911 Marie collapsed from depression and severe kidney problems that were a result of her longtime exposure to radium

Radium Institute cont. • In August 1914 the Radium Institute was finished, and named after Marie’s deceased husband

World War II • Shortly after the institute was finished, Germany invaded France • Marie’s staff was cut short to two people, herself and her daughter Irene

World War II cont. • Immediately after the War broke out Marie donated all of her money to the War fund, and signed up to be a nurse

X-ray Mobiles • Marie decided that there should be x-ray machines that the war doctors could use on the battle field for soldiers

X-ray mobiles cont. • Marie created 20 mobile x-ray machines and over 200 stationary machines

Radon • Marie also invented tiny glass tubes that were filled with radon ( a radioactive gas)

Radon cont. • Doctors would insert the tubes in patients at spots where the radiation would destroy diseased tissue

After the War • After the War ended in 1918 Marie spent a lot of time with her two daughters Irene and Eve

After the War cont. • After two or three years with her daughters she resumed her work with radium at the Paris institute

Declining Health • Marie had been working at the radium institute in good health for almost 12 years • She began to notice burns on her hands and her failing eyesight somewhere around 1932

Late Life • Marie’s blood had been weakened by her constant exposure to radium • This caused her to catch aplastic anemia

Late Life cont. • Marie eventually contracted leukemia and died on July 14, 1934

Awards • Marie was awarded numerous small awards during her life such as having her picture placed on a stamp!

Awards cont. • Marie was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1903 for her work with Xrays • She was also awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1911 for her work with radium