Marie Curie

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Marie Curie
Marie Curie, or Marie Sklodowska(her maiden name) was born in Warsaw in 1867. Both her parents were teachers who believed heavily in the importance of education. Marie had her first lessons in physics and chemistry from her father. She had a brilliant suitability for study and a great thirst for knowledge; however, advanced study was not possible for women in Poland. Marie dreamed of being able to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, but this was beyond the means of her family. To solve the problem, Marie and her elder sister, Bronya, came to an arrangement: Marie should go to work as a governess and help her sister with the money she managed to save so that Bronya could study medicine at the Sorbonne. When Bronya had taken her degree she, in her turn, would contribute to the cost of Marie’s studies.
When Marie was twenty-four, she finally went to Paris to study mathematics and physics. Bronya was now Married to a doctor, and Marie left for Paris and the urging of Bronya. By then she had been away from her studies for six years, nor had she had any training in understanding rapidly spoken French. But her interest in studying and her joy at being at the Sorbobbe with all its opportunities helped her overcome all difficulties. After many tribulations she finally made it to Paris. After two years, when she took her degree in physics in 1893, she headed the list of candidates and, in the following year, she came second in a degree in Mathematics. After three years she had brilliantly passed examinations in physics and mathematics. Her goal was to take a teacher’s diploma and then to return to Poland.
Now, however, there occurred an event that was to be of decisive importance in her life. She met Pierre Curie. He was 35 years old, eight years older than Marie, and an internationally known physicist, but an outsider in the French scientific community. He was also a serious idealist and dreamer whose greate...