Maria Skłodowska-Curie (7.11.1867—4.07.1934) — a Polish and French physicist and chemist, one of the founders of the study of radioactivity. Born in Warsaw. In 1891 — 94 she studied at the University of Paris and, on graduating, received two licentiate diplomas, in physics (1893) and in mathematics (1894). In 1895 she married the French physicist P. Curie and from that year began to work in his laboratory at the School of Physics and Chemistry (Paris). In 1900 —06 she was a teacher of physics at the École Normale at Sèvres. In 1903 she defended her doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris. From 1906 she was professor and head of a chair at the University of Paris, and from 1914 also director of the Radium Institute.
Her research concerned radioactivity and its applications. In 1897 she began to study the radioactive radiation of uranium salts and came to the conclusion that it is a property of the uranium atoms themselves. In 1898, independently of G. Schmidt, she proved that thorium is radioactive. She also noticed that the radioactivity of some minerals containing uranium and thorium is far more intense than might be expected. She supposed that these minerals (uranium pitchblende, chalcolite and autunite) contain a new radioactive element, different from uranium and thorium. The search for this hypothetical radioactive element was carried out in pitchblende together with P. Curie. Using the method they had developed of enrichment in the active substance, they came to the conclusion that two new radioactive elements are present in pitchblende. As a result of their joint intense and painstaking work on processing large quantities of pitchblende in order to concentrate the active substance, in July 1898 they discovered one of these elements, polonium, in December the second, radium, and in 1899 induced radioactivity.
In 1902 she obtained several decigrams of pure radium salt, and in 1910, together with the French chemist A. Debierne, metallic radium. She determined the atomic weight of radium and its place in the periodic table of the chemical elements. In 1903 the Curies (together with A. Becquerel) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their study of the phenomenon of radioactivity, and in 1911 M. Skłodowska-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for obtaining radium in the metallic state.
She tested many elements for radioactivity, studied their properties, developed the foundations of quantitative methods of radioactive measurement, studied induced radioactivity, established the influence of radioactive radiation on the living cell, was the first to use radioactivity (radium emanation) in medicine, introduced the term “radioactivity”, and so on. During the First World War (1914—18) she organised 220 mobile and stationary X-ray units for the X-ray and radiological service of the hospitals of France. She died of leukaemia.
A member of many academies of sciences and learned societies, in particular a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1926). The H. Davy Medal (1903) and the E. Cresson Medal (1909).