YOLA 12A: The Life and Work of Marie Curie - p2

presence
Marie found her interest drawn to pitchblende, a mineral whose radioactivity, superior to that of pure uranium, could be explained only by the presence of small quantities of an unknown substance of very high activity.

resolve
Pierre Curie joined Marie in the work that she had undertaken to resolve this problem, and that led to the discovery of the new elements, polonium and radium.

devoted
While Pierre devoted himself to the physical study of the new radiations, Marie struggled to obtain pure radium in the metallic state. This was achieved with the help of the chemist Andre-Louis Debierne, Pierre's pupil.

doctorate
Based on the results of this research, Marie Curie received her Doctorate of Science, and in 1903 Marie and Pierre shared with Becquerel the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of radioactivity.

lecturer
The births of Marie's two daughters, Irene and Eve, in 1897 and 1904 failed to interrupt her scientific work. She was appointed lecturer in physics at the Ecole Normale Superieure for girls in Sevresi France (1900).

appointed
Marie Curie introduced a method of teaching based on experimental demonstrations. In December 1904 she was appointed chief assistant in the laboratory directed by Pierre Curie.

turning point
The sudden death of her husband in 1906 was a bitter blow to Marie Curie, but was also a turning point in her career: henceforth she devoted all her energy to completing alone the scientific work that they had undertaken.

vacant
On May 13, 1906, she was appointed to the professorship that had been left vacant on her husband's death, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne.

isolation
In 1911 Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the isolation of a pure form of radium.