Before she rose
The French Academy of Science refused to elect her — even after she had won two Nobel Prizes. She was told the academy did not admit women.
Despite winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, the French Academy of Sciences voted to exclude her by two votes. A woman could win the highest scientific prize in the world and still be barred from the room where science was debated.
1867–1934 · Warsaw, Poland / Paris, France
She won two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. When she arrived at university, the men hissed.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
— Marie Curie
The University of Paris, 1891. A 24-year-old Polish woman takes her seat in the lecture hall. The men hiss. She opens her notebook and begins to write. She was living in an attic so cold she could not sleep. She was eating so little she sometimes fainted. She graduated first in her degree. Then she changed physics and chemistry forever.
Marie Curie is the only person in history to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific disciplines.
Physics in 1903 (shared with her husband Pierre and Henri Becquerel, for the discovery of radioactivity) and Chemistry in 1911 (for the isolation of radium and polonium).
Her laboratory was a leaky converted shed. It had no proper ventilation. The conditions were dangerous.
She and Pierre worked there for years, processing tons of pitchblende by hand to isolate a few grams of radium. She said later that those years, despite everything, were the best of her life.
Her husband Pierre died in a street accident in 1906. She was 38. She had two young daughters.
She took over his university chair — becoming the first woman professor at the Sorbonne. She kept working. She always kept working.
During World War I, Marie Curie developed mobile X-ray units — "petites Curies" — and drove them to the front lines to treat wounded soldiers.
She trained 150 women as X-ray technicians. Her work is estimated to have helped over a million wounded soldiers.
The notebooks she used in the 1890s are still radioactive. They are kept in lead-lined boxes. Researchers who want to read them must sign a liability waiver.
Her curiosity was so pure and so sustained that it left a physical trace that will last for 1,500 years.
What she taught us
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
— Marie Curie, Marie Curie
Her story. Your life.
A question worth sitting with
Marie Curie worked in a leaky shed, was rejected by the Academy, and was hissed at by classmates — and still changed science forever. What are you allowing the absence of institutional support to stop you from pursuing?
Take sixty seconds. Just sit with it.
A letter from her — to you
Know someone who needs this story?
Share on WhatsApp