marie curie

My hero is Marie Curie. I first heared about her in school and I was very impresed by her achievements. I decided to learn more about her.

The woman who became “Madame Marie Curie” was named Maria Sklodowska at birth. Her family and friends called her by a nickname, Manya. She was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, the city that had once been the capital of Poland.. Before Manya turned 11, her eldest sister had died of typhus and her mother had died of tuberculosis. Despite these losses, Manya graduated from high school at 15 with the highest honors. Women in Warsaw were not permitted to study at the University of Warsaw. So Maria and her older sister Bronya joined other students at a “floating university.” Shortly before she turned 24, Maria calculated she had saved up just enough money for university studies in Paris. She had looked forward to this moment for all of her life. Pierre Curie had a lab, so Marie was introduced to him in spring 1894. He had the impressive title of Laboratory Chief at the Paris Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry. The relationship between Pierre and Marie deepened and he convinced her that she should pursue science in Paris, not return to Poland for good. Pierre and Marie married in July 1895. Over the next two years, Marie completed her research on the magnetic properties of steels. She submitted her final results shortly before giving birth to their first daughter, Irène, in September 1897. Marie began looking for a research topic that would earn her a doctorate in science. No woman in the world had yet completed that degree. First Marie needed a lab. She had to settle for a storeroom in the Paris Municipal. She discovered that the strength of the rays that came out depended only on the amount of uranium in the compound. Perhaps, she suspected, something was happening inside uranium atoms that gave rise to rays. And not only inside uranium. To describe the behavior of two elements (thorium and uranium), Marie made up the term “radioactivity.”

Industrial firms saw an opportunity in the Curies’ research. They helped the Curies by providing additional lab space, raw materials, and support staff. Then the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Pierre and Marie Curie in 1903, the great honor quickly changed their lives. Curie was the first person to win a second Nobel Prize. She traveled to Sweden to accept the 1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her discovery of radium and polonium.

In August 1914, Germany invaded France. Curie looked for ways her science could help. She knew that doctors could use X-rays to save the lives of wounded soldiers. Curie talked wealthy people into donating their cars, and assembled a fleet of 20 mobile X-ray stations as well as 200 stationary stations. After the war ended in 1918, Marie Curie went back to doing whatever she could to raise money for the Radium Institute. She was becoming a living legend. As early as 1920 she had been sufferering from medical problems, probably caused by her many years of exposure to radioactive materials. On July 4, 1934, Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia, a blood disease that often results from getting too much radiation

I am very impressed by her achievements. She remindes me to be strong and not give up when I feel unhappy and think that there is nothing I can do in this world. That is why she is my hero.