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Marie Curie Quotes

Decent Essays
“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood.”
This quote comes from Marie Curie, a woman who was widely respected considering when she lived due to her help in the advancement in scientific knowledge. Marie Curie was born into the Sklodowski family in Warsaw, Poland on November 7th, 1867, as the youngest of 5 kids, and from a young age, she always had a thirst for learning.
Her mother, Bronislawa, was very smart for a woman of her time. She graduated from Warsaw’s top private school, and then worked her way up to the rank of principle. She also made it clear the better her kids did in school, the more she loved them. Her father, Wladyslaw, was trained for a career in science. He made everything a learning experience, and
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Bronia was given Marie’s wages to go to college in Paris, and in exchange Bronia would return after her schooling and bring Marie to Paris with her. To pay for Bronia’s trip, Marie was employed by a man who owned a beet-sugar farm and factory. Eventually in 1889, after she collected enough money, she returned to Warsaw. In 1891, Bronia received her medical degree, married a doctor, and collected enough to pay for Marie’s trip. Marie moved in with her sister and brother in law. She became fluent in French, but kept her Polish accent. After a few months, Marie moved out. She had some trouble at first, but she got back on her feet. She enrolled in physical sciences, being one of 23 women out of 1,800 students. Out of 2 women and hundreds of men, who all had taken an exam pursuing degrees in physical science, Marie passed with flying colors. ”The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry” found out about Marie’s scores and hired her to research the magnetic properties of steel. While researching for them, she continued her regular school studies, and in 1894 she earned a second degree in mathematical sciences. She planned to return to Poland and live with her father, with her two degrees she thought she could help her homeland as a teacher, but, during spring she met Pierre Curie. He was head of the lab at the brand new “Paris School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry”, and since Marie needed a…show more content…
After more testing, she found that pitchblende, a mineral which contained lots of uranium, made more radioactivity than the uranium itself should, which meant the pitchblende had to contain another unseen radioactive element. Pierre helped Marie and set aside his own work because of her fascinating discoveries. In July 1898, after they found 2 new elements, they went out to publish a paper about their findings, and named the first new element ‘polonium’ due to Marie’s nationality (Poland) and the second named ‘radium’, because in Latin, ray is radium.People started using radium in everyday life without knowing of the dangers of it, used to ‘cure cancer’ due to the fact it destroys cells. Pierre and Marie had began to experience consequences of working around radioactive materials for so long, such as weight loss and becoming more feeble. Pierre died April 19th, 1906 when he fell into the street and a wagon ran over him, and there’s reason to believe his exposure to radium caused his
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