#The Elements of Marie Curie

[kaiyves-backup]

I thought I knew a lot about the Curies because I read Lauren Redness's Radioactive back in High School when it came out, but I don't think it touched on what big cycling fans Marie and Pierre were and how they took whole cycle-touring vacations. Obviously a lot of people in the US and Europe were into cycling during the 1890s bike boom, most famously the Wright Brothers, but I don't think everyone was necessarily going on whole vacations by bicycle (and sometimes biking all through the night to make up for lost time!)

[justforbooks]

The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel

A fresh and feminist study of the pioneering Nobel laureate reveals her impact on the women she mentored and set on the path to prominence

Marie Curie carried out some of her most pathbreaking work under an actual glass ceiling and the toxic particles that swirled beneath it eventually killed her. What Dava Sobel wants to convey to us in this unabashedly feminist account of the great woman’s life is that the metaphorical glass ceiling was just as toxic to the society over which it was clamped.

Each occasion the two-time Nobel laureate had a new advance to announce to the world, she had to beg a male colleague to present it to France’s scientific academy, which barred women from its ranks. This iron-clad rule outlived Curie, hobbling her daughter Irène – another Nobel laureate – in her turn, and by the time a woman was finally granted full membership, in 1979, not only were both Marie and Irène more famous than most of the men who had blocked them, but that first female member gave her affiliation as the “Pierre and Marie Curie University”, Paris.

The academy couldn’t even claim that Marie was riding on her husband’s coat-tails, since Pierre had died tragically early in their marriage and she went on to great things – including a second Nobel prize – alone. A true scientist, she was never really alone, though. There were individual men – Pierre first among them – who recognised her brilliance and whose support for her never faltered. The physicist Paul Langevin, briefly her lover once she had been widowed, remained loyal long after the affair and accompanying scandal had fizzled out. That much we knew. What wasn’t so well known, and which Sobel brings out in her new biography, is that Curie created her own school and that many of those she mentored and set on the path to prominence were women. Each of those women inspired many others, in a radioactive cascade that would have lit up one of Irène’s cherished cloud chambers.

These were, necessarily, unconventional careers – and all the more inspiring for that. It’s hard to imagine a young woman arriving in France or any western country today, as Marie Skłodowska did in 1891, penniless, lacking a university degree, barely speaking the local lingo and going on to win a Nobel prize just over a decade later – and credit must go to the institutions and individuals who made that possible. There were women who passed through the Curie lab whose discoveries were feted around the world before they had obtained their baccalaureate, let alone a PhD. These “laboratory daughters” were fiercely loyal to Curie, and when her real daughter showed intellectual promise, she assembled a version of the “flying university” that she had benefited from in her youth in Russian-occupied Warsaw to help realise that promise. Irène was home schooled by some of the most respected thinkers of their generation. This is how scientific dynasties are born.

There were enough holes in the periodic table in the early 20th century to keep Curie in the lab for several lifetimes, but she didn’t hesitate to step outside it when the world called. The first world war having created a demand for mobile X-ray units, she built the units and learned to drive, then enlisted the ever-willing Irène as her aide-de-camp. If the book has a fault, it’s that the world doesn’t get the same attention to detail as Dmitri Mendeleev’s brilliant ordering of the elements. In the spring of 1919, the Curies’ otherwise healthy second daughter, Ève, came down with double pneumonia, aged 14. Sobel doesn’t mention that this happened against the backdrop of a flu pandemic – a disaster that claimed many more lives than the war.

Overall, though, her short and well-paced book succeeds in dispelling the dust that clings to some accounts of this most famous of lives and makes it fresh again. Her explanations of the science allow the reader to grasp how one experiment led logically to the next in the search for radioactive elements and particles, and to puzzle or rejoice with the scientists as the results come in. Their thirst for knowledge might have come close to an addiction, because even after they knew how toxic their workspace was, they were drawn ineluctably back into it.

They paid the price. We knew that too, but perhaps not to what extent. In an appendix entitled The Radioactivists, Sobel provides potted biographies of the dramatis personae. It’s shocking how many died of the effects of radiation exposure – effects that were sometimes recognised at the time, sometimes only later – and of course they weren’t the only ones. But then there were the countless others whose lives were saved or prolonged thanks to Curie’s discoveries – as well as the discoveries of the many women (and some men) who, but for her, would never have seen the inside of a lab.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[shalegas34]

I am reading a book about Marie Curie and the women she worked with, and I have a new fave scientist to go with Lise Meitner: Ellen Gleditsch 😍😍💯👩‍🔬

• second female professor of norway, kicked off radioactivity research at the university of oslo. a bunch of men tried to stop her and failed

• determined the half life of radium-226 (1600 years) which is the value still accepted today

• her laboratory sheltered scientists fleeing from nazi germany, she also hid people in her home

• protested fascist regimes all the way to death

• took in some of her younger siblings after their parents passed away. never married and there is no mention of relationships in her life story 😎

This book has introduced me to so many cool scientists I’ve never heard of before. let’s go!

[farine5roses2010]

How to discover an element:

Test the yellow dye. It is radioactive.

Process the yellow dye. Put away the leftovers.

Test the Uranium. It is radioactive.

Test the leftovers. They are still radioactive.

Process the leftovers. Put away the meta leftovers.

Test the Polonium. It is radioactive.

Test the meta leftovers. They are still radioactive.

Process the meta leftovers. Put away the meta meta leftovers.

Test the Radium. It is the most radioactive element in existence. (So far)

Test the meta meta leftovers. They are not radioactive.

Throw away the meta meta leftovers.

Die of radiation poisoning. You are Marie Curie.

[seasonplacko1973blog]

[sad-boys-book-club]

"&" Ampersand - A Literary Companion

Selected stories with the themes of Bastille's upcoming project "&" Ampersand. And, of course, a love letter to my favourite band.

PART 1

Intros & Narrators: Wallace, David Foster. Oblivion: Stories. Little, Brown and Company, 2004./ Nancherla, Aparna. Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome. Penguin Publishing Group, 2023.// Eve & Paradise Lost: Bohannon, Cat. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023. / Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Alma Classics, 2019.// Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky: Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them. Harvard University Press, 2016. /Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson: Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011.// Blue Sky & The Painter: Prideaux, Sue. Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream. Yale University Press, 2019. / Knausgaard, Karl Ove. So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch. Random House, 2019.//

PART 2

Leonard & Marianne: Hesthamar, Kari. So Long, Marianne: A Love Story - Includes Rare Material by Leonard Cohen. Ecw Press, 2014./ Cohen, Leonard. Book of Longing. Penguin Books Limited, 2007.// Marie & Polonium: Curie, Eve. Madame Curie. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./Sobel, Dava. The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024.// Red Wine & Wilde: Wilde, Oscar, et al. De Profundis. Harry N. Abrams, 1998./ Sturgis, Matthew. Oscar: A Life. Head of Zeus, 2018.// Seasons & Narcissus: Ovid. Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation. Penguin, 2004./ Morales, Helen. Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths. PublicAffairs, 2020.//

PART 3

Drawbridge & The Baroness: Rothschild, Hannah. The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./ Katz, Judy H. White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-racism Training. University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.// The Soprano & Her Midnight Wonderings: Ardoin, John, and Gerald Fitzgerald. Callas: The Art and the Life. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974./ Abramovic, Marina. 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. Damiani, 2020.// Essie & Paul: Ransby, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Haymarket Books, 2022./ Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press, 1998.//

PART 4

Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze: Gautier, Theophile. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Penguin Classics, n.d./ Gardiner, Kelly. Goddess. HarperCollins, 2014.// Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her: Chang-Eppig, Rita. Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023./ Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy. Penguin Books, 1975. // Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024: Kaufman, Bob. Golden Sardine. City Lights Books, 1976./ Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Pan Macmillan Australia Pty, Limited, 2008.

Original artwork created by Theo Hersey & Dan Smith. Printed letterpress at The Typography Workshop, South London.

[marauderswolf22]

Instead of a normal tag game im often doing, let's do this because im so tired of this as a pole myself

This woman is Maria Skłodowska-Curie, not Marie Curie. She was polish, she was born in Warsaw. After she married her husband she kept her maiden name because she loved poland and wanted to be known as a polish female scientist. She made sure to learn her daughters polish. She named one of the two elements she discovered polonium after her homeland!!!

Calling her french, not saying her maiden name (okay I know it can be hard to pronouce but just try to say sklodowska), changing her name for it to sound french, it's like you're erasing a part of her, a part that was so important to her. Most of her life Poland was not even on the maps, it didn't theoretically exist under partitions. She was growing up in a time that was full of romantic patriotism. During the first world war she helped to train polish nurses, she wanted to help her country with the knowledge she had.

In 1915, she signed, along with Henryk Sienkiewicz (a famous polish writer) and Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pianist and social activist/civic leader (i can't find the right word)), a proclamation published in the press calling for contributions to the General Committee for Aid to War Victims in Poland, founded in Vevey.

After the war, when poland was reborn, she wrote a letter to her brother saying: “So, born in slavery, fertilized in the womb, we will see the rebirth of our homeland that we dreamed of. We had no hope that we would see this moment ourselves, we thought that maybe our children would see it. But this moment has come for us. Like you, I believe in our future"

During her stay in the USA, Maria used her collected money to buy a gram of radium, which was very expensive at that time, and donated it to Poland so that the Radium Institute in Warsaw could be launched. She did much more, but I listed just this.

Please stop trying to erase her origin, disconnect her country from her

im tagging so that more people can read this, im constantly seeing "Marie Curie" and i hope i can change it even just a little (and it's a no pressure tag ofc): @vellichorius @brokendoor16 @crikey01 @kurt-cobain-is-jesus-in-disguise @midnights-dragon

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Polonium was the first element discovered by Marie Curie, and she named it after her home country, Poland. It is highly radioactive; a gram of polonium will generate enough radiation to heat itself up to 500F.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

Today I was reading about Marie Curie: she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness her body bombarded for years by the element she had purified It seems she denied to the end the source of the cataracts on her eyes the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends till she could no longer hold a test tube or a pencil She died a famous woman denying her wounds denying her wounds came from the same source as her power. (Lines 6-17)

Adrienne Rich, "Power," Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose

[forsoobado137]

The anon from the country-people getting hurt again!

1) thank you for the compliment on my English:D

2) can't imagine being in a coma for so long is fun rip Feliks

3) While yes Poland as a country wasn't there but people still learned polish and tried to keep the nation alive in any way possible

Examples cuz I'm a nerd:

- one of the books called "Syzyfowe pracę (Sisyphean labors)" by Stefan Żeromski is autobiographical novel which described the school life under Russian occupation. One of the scenes I remember of off the top of my head is that in school children were secretly being taught Polish and one of the teachers had to stand guard outside the classroom

- Maria Skłodowska-Curie kept (most of the times) signing her name as Skłodowska-Curie and named the element she discovered Polonium. Poles often get annoyed when people just say Maria Curie because it erases the polish heritage she had and (most likely) tried to keep alive by signing with her maiden name and the name of the element, yes she was a french citizen but Poland wasn't on the map back then so she had to do it that way (<- dunno if I'm making sense sorry if not)

There are many other examples but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Back to Hetalia, I like to think that Feliks wasn't in a coma but lived in hiding, quietly fighting among humans, teaching the language and helping as much as he could. Of course he would have been much weaker, maybe chronically sick? (Which is what I head canon is happening to Gilbert, chronically sick and pretty weak) After all he was only alive in the hearts of his people

Personally, I like the idea of him being presumed dead, I mean most people wouldn't think a country that got wiped from the map 3 times one time for over 100 years would came back and yet here he was, sick yet still standing

I'm polish so that's why I'm so into it lol sorry for the long read but I just really love thinking what happens to nation-people when the nation is basically gone -✨Anon (<- naming myself in case I will want to write in again lol)

Wow, thank you for the history info! Especially about Marie Skłodowska-Curie. I will definitely call her that from now on. Thank you, ✨ Anon!

And I like the idea of Feliks being chronically sick instead of a coma. He is very resilient, and I think that he was in a similar situation to Gilbert now, where he lost most/all of his healing powers.

So that also means he was probably dodging assassination attempts left and right! God damn, Poland!

[prozerpina2001]

After Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I just had a flashback of reading „Chain of thorns” for the first time and experiencing a huge, feminist rage caused by Maria Skłodowska-Curie being refered to as Marie Curie (the author @cassandraclare couldn’t even got her name right? C’mon, do a research!). The west world erasing the fact that Maria (not „Marie”) was Polish is such a big problem. It’s not only xenophobic, because for some reason people can’t accept that a Polish scientist could be that successful, but also misogynistic, since you’re trying to belittle her and make everything about her being a wife of a FRENCH MAN. Her being married didn’t stop the undeniable fact that she was Polish and she named one of the chemical elements POLONIUM (clearly after her freaking homeland), not Frenchonium (lol). Her wish was to be remembered as a Polish scientist who couldn’t live and study in her own country, because it was occupied by Prussia, Austria and Russia for 123 years.

So her being admired by both Christopher Lightwood and Astrid and also being called the FEMINIST ICON while constantly getting both her name, surname and nationality (not citizenship) wrong is such a disgusting joke. I had enough.

I know that the only people who care are Polish, but I’m so tired and bitter about this. If you can’t even remeber her name (Maria SKŁODOWSKA-Curie, that’s not so difficult!), then don’t call yourself feminist, that’s a hypocrisy 🤣 Or just leave her alone, that poor woman doesn’t deserve such a treatment.

Again, I’m just very tired and bitter about this whole thing. If you want to call me out on this, I will just block you. I don’t have enough strenght and time and will to fight in Internet. Enough Poles tried to educate others. Just go read Wikipedia (oh right, most of the versions couldn’t get her name right) or something.

[wanderingskylooker]

ICT club and it's brilliant leader (Super 4: High School AU)

-> Super 4: High School AU

As long as they are technically young people I could ignore the beard or moustache, but a bald man with white hair? Chemistry, explosions and a horrible tendency to pull his hair when he is angry could be... serious, catastrophic, Doctor X.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do jokes about Doctor X and toxic elements. Like: "Between mercury, radioactivity and Doctor X, he wins.", "He is so toxic that not even his own body can tolerate himself.", "He will be the next Marie Curie, but without discovering the radium.".

Franz is amazed to have seen his idols, and Magda already done.

Note: Tomorrow's comic will be the last one I upload on a roll. I won't stop uploading, but having four-panel colored comics every day isn't feasible in terms of time. I don't know if I'll do regular doodles or one or two colored panel comics each week. I am already thinking of a longer comic, but next week will be more chill for me.

Have a nice day and enjoy the weekend! ✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧

[geniuseccentric]

What's your favorite chemical element?

Radium. Fascinating element. Discovered by the incredible female scientist, Marie Curie.

I love seeing women in science. We need more of them.

[hermann-rorschach]

(I break the shield with radioactive slime]

Oh wonderful, those elements Marie Curie is studying? Sounds absolutely and devilishly fun! What an interesting reaction!

If I’m not mistaken it must be the water in this slime which causes it to burn so violently, or perhaps it’s acidic as well? . . .But I’m no chemist.

[parakaryote]

Luminiferous Aether Earth: History

(Or: A guide to the divergent history in which my WIP novelette When In Erebus is set. The first part of this guide, an explanation of the physics of aether and EM radiation, can be found here.)

Antiquity: The starscape visible from Earth is a bit different in this universe, owing to neutron stars being much more luminous due to their effects on aether (and therefore light).

9th century AD: The second most luminous star in the sky is first officially referred to with the name that will be used in star catalogues for centuries to come: Najm-Ul-Wahaj, the Blazing Star. (In our world, it is known as RX J1856.5-3754.)

Most of the 19th century: As in our world, various experiments are conducted to test the luminiferous aether hypothesis. They are inconclusive because the measuring equipment is not sufficiently sensitive and / or they operate on incorrect assumptions about the properties of aether.

April - July 1887: The Michelson-Morley experiment gives a positive result. In the following years, more experiments following similar principles do as well, and aether captures the public imagination.

July 1898: When Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie isolate polonium from pitchblende, they notice that it glows. It is hypothesized that radioactivity strongly excites the aether — accurate, but only in certain cases.

(Note: Real-life polonium does emit light even in small quantities, but in this universe the glow is brighter and its mechanism is different.)

(Note 2: While uranium and thorium were discovered before polonium, both in real life and here, the known isotopes weren't radioactive enough / had half-lives too long to produce an observable effect regarding aether.)

1899: Ernest Rutherford figures out there is a difference between alpha and beta radiation. He hypothesizes that a sufficiently radioactive beta emitter (stronger than the uranium he used in his experiment, which has a very long half-life and therefore no visible glow) will glow more brightly than any alpha emitter.

1900s: Much research is done regarding aether and radioactivity. The knowledge of the latter progresses much faster than it did in our world. (A bonus is that its dangers were discovered earlier. The radium paint fad is short-lived.)

1910: Neutrons are discovered during an experiment with polonium and lithium (similar to what happened in real life, just earlier and by different people). The discovery of gamma rays is initially taken as proof of Rutherford's hypothesis, with them being misinterpreted as the extra-aether-exciting effect of beta radiation he predicted.

1912: The first nuclear reactor is built in New York (state). Its operators kind of just test samples of all the elements they can get their hands on. They notice something strange: some of the irradiated samples don't glow, but rather seem to suck light away around them. This is soon found out to be the actual effect of beta radiation on aether, posing a scientific mystery until the weak force is discovered decades later.

An American scientist first effectively isolates aether from the air, using a mass of strontium-90 to create a small lightless space. This is the precursor to the deaetherizing apparatus.

1913: A German scientist reads the article on the strontium-90 experiment and gets the idea of using aether instead of hydrogen to fill zeppelins. Being lighter than hydrogen, it should provide increased lifting power, and as it isn't flammable its use should eliminate the risk of explosion. However, there is no method of actually transporting aether (yet).

1914: At the start of World War I, Germany builds its own nuclear reactor and sets to isolating aether. (Thankfully, no one gets the idea of making nuclear weapons. All the focus on radioactivity in this time period pertains to its interactions with aether.)

1915: A way to effectively transport aether through pipes / hoses is figured out. Basically, when aetherons are clumped around a beta emitter, they become liable to move like regular matter. All you have to do is blow a little air (or other gas) on them to get them moving. With this, the first aether zeppelins are built. It's discovered that they have an issue of deflating quite rapidly through diffusion, but their speed and carrying capacity makes up for it.

The Allies catch wind of this and start working on defences. A plan is devised: create a series of massive deaetherizing apparatuses, large and powerful enough to collectively suck the light out of an entire city. When engaged, they will make navigation impossible (except through sonar), as well as accelerating the diffusion of the aether from the balloons.

Early 1916: A series of large-scale deaetherizing apparatuses are built. Some are installed throughout New York City, and some are shipped out to other major cities in the Allied countries. This is all kept top secret, of course.

June 1916: First official use of the apparatuses. The Central Powers launch an aerial assault on New York City and arrive to primordial darkness. The planned battle ends quickly with no casualties. This becomes a major point of American national pride.

1916-1918: Deaetherizing apparatuses are deployed several more times in various cities. Though the aether zeppelins are soon retired altogether, the impenetrable darkness effect is still very useful for confusing and deterring attackers. Some advances in sonar tech are made on both sides before the war ends and the apparatuses are closed.

1918-1932: The American government leans hard into promoting the country’s scientific achievements. Aether control is particularly celebrated, not only for saving the country some very nasty battles but also for the whole “we’ve learned how to control a basic part of nature on a large scale” factor.

1923: A group of scientists and politicians come up with the Erebus Project. All of New York City’s deaetherizing apparatuses will be turned on, and whatever changes need to be made from that point on will be made. This includes the building of aether transport infrastructure underground and throughout all the buildings, as well as special vehicles equipped with sonar devices. This is agreed to on the grounds that it will a) be “the ultimate show of scientific progress” b) serve as a ground for more study and c) provide more impetus for the construction of large buildings. Much advertising material showing a glamorous eternal nightlife is made. The populace generally agrees, and construction begins.

December 16, 1926: The Erebus Project is launched, to general applause from the American populace. The tops of the apparatuses are opened once more, and all of the aether is sucked out of the air and rerouted into buildings.

Late December 1926: The project quickly stops seeming cool to any of NYC's inhabitants who aren't involved in the Erebus Project. Humans generally are not made for a lack of sunlight, and only the people who profit from it have anything to gain from toughing out the discomfort.

The heads of Erebusian Management promise it won’t be forever. The project will end after the strontium-90 in the apparatuses undergoes a half-life… in, uh, 1944.

Spring 1927: Coordinated groups of protestors gain access to the pipes near the largest deaetherizing apparatuses and damage them. For a brief period of time, some light seeps back into the sky of Erebus. Most of the protestors are swiftly arrested and imprisoned, and guards are employed around the apparatuses.

1928: Further crackdowns on protesting, and placement of limits on travel out of the city.

December 16, 1929: On the third anniversary of the Erebus Project, New York City is officially renamed after it.

1930: Dielism, an artistic movement focusing on day and night imagery, officially comes to be. The "Dielism Evening" becomes a popular gathering.

March - December 1932: The events of When In Erebus take place.

I don't have concrete ideas for anything that happens after WIE. I will repeat that despite the more rapid advancement of nuclear science, the eventual situation around the development of nuclear weapons is not worse than it was in our world because of the focus on its use for aether control. (In other words, the Axis powers do not get atom bombs, nor does the Cold War end in a nuclear apocalypse. I'm not interested in writing stuff like that.)

[thelensofscience]

Marie Curie: The Greatest Woman Scientist In History

   Hello Folks! As many of you may have realized, exam season has begun, so I have not had as much time as usual to get my research done. So today, I thought I would do a blog post that I have been dreaming about doing for a while. Today we are talking about my idol and slight obsession: Marie Curie. 

    Born in Warsaw, Poland, as Maria Sklowdowska, Maria was the daughter of two teachers during wartime. Due to the consistent fighting, her parents knew it was not safe to send their daughter to either of their schools. Thus, she went to a boarding school nearby instead. At age eight, her older sister died, and just two years later, so did her mother. Deceived by their deaths, Maria began to immerse herself in her study to cover her grief. By the time she had finished secondary school, she had gotten a gold medal for her dedication and effort. After completing her schooling, Maria decided to become a governess to pay for one of her sisters to study in France.  Later on, she also moved there to attend college at the Sorbonne (University of Paris). She changed her name to Marie to fit within French customs. Marie studied profusely and, in 1893, graduated top of her class with a degree in physics. 

    Then in 1894, she graduated second in her class for mathematics. After finishing her studies, she needed to get lab space, which led to her meeting Pierre Curie. She needed the space, and they had the opportunity to share a makeshift lab. Soon after they fell in love over their love of science, in 1895, they got married. 

    A few years later, they conducted research with Henri Becquerel as they studied radioactivity in uranium. While they were studying uranium ores, they discovered two new elements within them, called polonium (named after its home country) and radium. These were highly radioactive elements that made a severe impact on the chemical field. In 1903, she won her first Nobel Prize along with her husband and their partner for their work in radioactivity and physics. 

    Sadly, in 1906, her husband died due to being hit by a horse-drawn carriage. By then, Marie had to continue her work as a single mother of two daughters named Irene and Eve Curie. Despite the hardship she faced, she chose to work harder and eventually was able to isolate both of the elements she had previously discovered, which allowed her to win her second Nobel Prize in 1911. 

    However, right before she received the prize, she fell in love with a married but estranged man, and their relationship was leaked to the press. Soon, she was berated with hatred and called a homewrecker despite the marriage already being ruined. It got so far that the Nobel Prize committee suggested she should come to collect her prize to avoid scandal. Yet with her dignity, she went and collected her award and became not only the first person to win two Nobel Prizes but also the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different fields- physics and chemistry. 

    After this immense achievement, she went on to have many other achievements, such as making little curies for World War 1 (small trucks with x-rays used to aid soldiers), founding the radium institute (where important cancer research was conducted, and gaining global recognition for her work. 

    Her legacy continued with her daughter Irene, who went on to a Nobel Prize in physics with her husband. Her other daughter, Eve, went on to become a journalist and published "Madame Curie," dictating her mother's life and circumstances.

     On July 4, 1934, at 66 years old, Marie Curie died from a bone-deteriorating condition most likely caused by her immense overexposure to radiation. 

Anyway, Marie Curie is amazing, and while this is a brief overview of her life, I would recommend doing more research on this wonderful woman. I am happy I got to write this, but I promise to get back on the science grind after next Sunday (when exams are over). Anyway, as always, thanks for reading. I hope you learned something new, and a question: who is your idol? See you next week. Bye!