The scientist Maria Salomea Skłodowsk was born in Warsaw in 1867, from an early age she emerged for her extraordinary intelligence and memory. In 1891 she moved to Paris to study physics and later mathematics at the Sorbonne. At university she met Pierre Curie, a scientist, professor of physics and her future husband. The scientists married and later worked together, studying natural radioactivity in uranium salts in a rudimentary laboratory. Thanks to Antoine Henri Becquerel's already known studies on the discovery of radioactivity in uranium salts, Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered that other naturally occurring elements, such as thorium, are also capable of emitting radiation. Radioactivity is the ability of certain atoms to emit ionising radiation, radiation can be defined as energy, examples of which are radio waves. The term ionising indicates that this type of radiation has the ability to destroy the internal bonds of molecules. Marie noticed that pitchblende, a mineral containing small amounts of uranium salts, exhibited more radioactivity than the uranium salts themselves, so the two scientists realised that radiation was an intrinsic property of uranium. From the pitchblende Marie Curie managed to isolate Polonium, a new radioactive element, then they discovered the existence of Radium, an element much more radioactive than uranium. In 1902 the couple divided their work, Marie worked on isolating Radium and determining the atomic weight so that they could proceed to the official certification of a new chemical element, while Pier concentrated on the origin and significance of radioactivity. In 1903 they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries. In 1906 due to an accident Pierre Curie died, so his chair at the Sorbonne passed to his wife, the first woman to receive this position. In 1911 Marie Curie received a further Nobel Prize in Chemistry for having isolated the metal radium. The formidable scientist due the constant exposure to radiation made her ill with leukaemia and she died on 4 July 1934, unconsciously sacrificing themselves for science.
Mariacarla Frippa