Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. At that time, in Poland and Germany, women were not allowed to go to college, so she decided to study in Paris. She attended the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1891 and majored in mathematics and physics. She graduated with outstanding grades. She married Pierre Curie in 1895 and obtained French citizenship. She began her research with her husband in France. This prompted the Curies to investigate a similar phenomenon in uranium salts that led to the discovery of uranium radioactivity.

After her husband Pierre Curie’s death in 1906, she continued to study radioactive materials. Marie Curie later became the first female Sorbonne professor. She succeeded in measuring the atomic weight of radium more precisely, and in 1910 she also succeeded in separating the metal radium. In 1911, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of radium and polonium. Repeated experiments weakened her body and she died of leukemia in 1934.

L.L.F reporter Na-gyeong Kim