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The views expressed herein are the personal views of each individual author or commenter and are not intended to reflect the views of The Ojai Post or its Authors, Tribal Core or Tyler Suchman as managing editor.

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Madame Marie Curie

A young Polish woman traveled economy-class from Warsaw to Paris in autumn 1891. She had enough money to cover university tuition, a small room and the cheapest food, but little else. Maria Sklodowska left behind not only her beloved father and country but her very name. She registered at the famous Sorbonne university as Marie, the French form of Maria.


Marie was not as well prepared as her fellow students. Nevertheless, through hard work she completed master’s degrees in physics and math in only three years. Living on her own for the first time, she focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat.

Scientists were fascinated by the discovery of X-rays. It was not just that the rays would be a huge help in medicine and must have many other practical uses. Here was a new tool for penetrating and studying matter. At this time, the end of the 19th century, many of the great problems of physics had been solved. There were laws for electricity and magnetism and gravity and more. But scientists knew they faced even greater mysteries, for the true nature of energy and matter were entirely unknown.

In Paris, Henri Becquerel was as intrigued as any scientist by X-rays. For many years he had studied unusual fluorescent minerals. If he let the sun shine on such a mineral, he wondered, might the energy of the sunlight make it give off X-rays? He found that a rock containing uranium did give off rays that could go through a sheet of black paper. By accident, he discovered that the rock gave off rays even when the sun was not shining on it! Where did the energy of the rays come from? What was it about this mineral that gave it such mysterious power?

Credit to:
http://www.aip.org/history/curie/brief/02_love/love_1.html

Posted by Brian Cox on August 15, 2008 09:00 AM | | | Madame Marie Curie

Comments (2)

Better link to web site:

http://www.aip.org/history/curie/brief/index.html

Comment #1 Posted by: Brian | August 15, 2008 11:31 AM

Very appropriate for the first day of school ! Young female students can take great inspiration from Madame Curie.

Comment #2 Posted by: Anonymous | August 19, 2008 07:01 AM

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