Marie Curie Wins Nobel Prize in Physics — 122 Years Ago

A Scientist Who Changed the World

Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. She moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne because Polish universities did not accept women. Working in a cold, leaky shed with her husband Pierre, she discovered two new elements — polonium (named after her homeland) and radium — through years of painstaking chemical separation. Her work proved that atoms could emit radiation, a property she named "radioactivity," fundamentally changing science's understanding of matter.

The Nobel Prize in Physics

In 1903, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research on radiation. Marie was the first woman ever to receive the Nobel Prize. The recognition didn't come easily — the Nobel Committee initially planned to award only Pierre and Becquerel, and it was Pierre who insisted that Marie be included. The award brought international attention, but also opened Curie to cruel criticism: some in the scientific community questioned whether a woman deserved such recognition.

Pioneer Against All Odds

Curie's discovery of radium opened new avenues in medicine, physics, and chemistry. She developed mobile X-ray units during World War I — called "petites Curies" — that helped treat wounded soldiers in the field. She faced constant barriers as a woman in science but never stopped working. Her laboratory notebooks remain so radioactive today that they are stored in lead-lined boxes and researchers must sign waivers to view them. Read about her second Nobel Prize, an achievement no one had reached before.