Marie Curie

Marie Curie and her husband, PierreMental FlossMarie Curie was one of the most brilliant and greatest female scientists in history. In her lifetime, she won two Nobel Prizes in the the categories of physics and chemistry. One of the Nobel Prizes was shared with her husband, Pierre Curie, for discovering and identifying two radioactive elements called polonium and radium. She was born in Warsaw, Poland, on Nov. 7, 1867. She had a good education and graduated from high school at the age of 15. She wanted to go to college, but the University of Warsaw didn't accept women. So, off she went to go to college in Sorbonne, in Paris. She was a hard worker all throughout her life. Marie Curie never gave up. To go to college, she had to work tirelessly to pay for her and her sister. Even when she realized her high school curriculum didn't prepare her enough, she strived for success. I will never get the chance to talk to her, and I will never get a chance to know what was inside her brilliant and strong mind, but I know that her work, her hard work, still stands today, to live on within us.

“We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something,” Marie Curie once said. She inspires women just by these powerful and inspiring words. She was a leader. No woman or man should be controlled or forced to do a job they don't like. They shouldn't feel obliged to not doing what they love to do. Thanks to Marie’s example, women then and now believe her words. You don't need to be a man to go out and make discoveries in the scientific world. But she is not just inspiring, she is also humble and kind. Did you know that Marie Curie never patented any of her research? Yes, it is true, not even one piece. Someone has said, “A brilliant physicist and tireless researcher who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she was always exceedingly modest about her achievements and emphasized that they belonged to science, not to her.” This quote states that she wanted women to discover things, not just men.

Marie Curie in her labratory in Paris.gettyimages.com 

Marie Curie was many things. She was a female physicist, chemist, women’s rights supporter, inventor and humanitarian, but most importantly, she was my hero. She was an achiever. This woman, Marie Curie, never gave up. No matter what obstacles were in her way, she just tore through, maneuvering and scouting ways to complete the task at hand. I loved all her traits and abilities--traits such as kindness, compassion, determination, perseverance, unpretentiousness, and responsibility. Marie was able to do anything she put her mind to. Marie may have died on the date of July 4th, 1934, but she will never truly leave if her work and kindness remains.