Edited by Gerald Boerner
Commentary:
One of the scientists that I have had great admiration for since Junior High School is Marie Curie. She was born and grew up in Warsaw, Poland, where she managed to get a gymnasium education. She supported her older sister through her medical studies at the University of Paris; her sister would then help her when she studied there. She was one of the first women to earn her DSc from the Sorbonne. She married Pierre Curie, had two daughters, and worked with her husband on their studies of Radium.
For their work on this element, they jointly won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. After Pierre’s death in 1907, she continued her research on radioactivity and radioactive decay. For this work, she earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1011. Also following Pierre’s death, she was appointed to the Chair in Physics created for him at the Sorbonne in 1906. She thus became the first woman Lecturer and Professor at the institution. Upon her death in 1934, she was buried along side of her husband in the Panthéon in Paris.
She was an inspiration to to me at that formative time in my life. She was also significant due to the emigration of my maternal grandmother from East Prussia (Poland) in the early years of the 20th century as a young girl.
After settling in Los Angeles, she met my grandfather, married, and raised a family. Both of these women have been inspirational to me because in their later life they lived over twenty years after the death of their husbands. They were strong women!But, let’s get started on our exploration of the honors and academic achievements of Marie Curie… GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 3591 Words ]
Quotations Related to Marie Curie:
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
— Marie Curie
“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”
— Marie Curie
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”
— Pierre Curie