If you want a glimpse of Marie Curie's manuscripts, you'll have to sign a waiver and put on protective gear to shield yourself from radiation contamination. Madame Curie's remains, too, were interred in a lead-lined coffin, keeping the radiation that was the heart of her research, and likely the cause of her death, well contained. Growing up in Warsaw in Russian-occupied Poland, the young Marie, originally named Maria Sklodowska, was a brilliant student, but she faced some challenging barriers. As a woman, she was barred from pursuing higher education, so in an act of defiance, Marie enrolled in the Floating University, a secret institution that provided clandestine education to Polish youth. By saving money and working as a governess and tutor, she eventually was able to move to Paris to study at the reputed Sorbonne. There, Marie earned both a physics and mathematics degree surviving largely on bread and tea, and sometimes fainting from near starvation. In Paris, Marie met the physicist Pierre Curie, who shared his lab and his heart with her. But she longed to be back in Poland. Upon her return to Warsaw, though, she found that securing an academic position as a woman remained a challenge. All was not lost. Back in Paris, the lovelorn Pierre was waiting, and the pair quickly married and became a formidable scientific team. Another physicist's work sparked Marie Curie's interest. In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium spontaneously emitted a mysterious X-ray-like radiation that could interact with photographic film. Curie soon found that the element thorium emitted similar radiation. Most importantly, the strength of the radiation depended solely on the element's quantity, and was not affected by physical or chemical changes. This led her to conclude that radiation was coming from something fundamental within the atoms of each element. The idea was radical and helped to disprove the long-standing model of atoms as indivisible objects. Next, by focusing on a super radioactive ore called pitchblende, the Curies realized that uranium alone couldn't be creating all the radiation. So, were there other radioactive elements that might be responsible? In 1898, they reported two new elements, polonium, named for Marie's native Poland, and radium, the Latin word for ray. They also coined the term radioactivity along the way. By 1902, the Curies had extracted a tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride salt from several tons of pitchblende, an incredible feat at the time. Later that year, Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel were nominated for the Nobel Prize in physics, but Marie was overlooked. Pierre took a stand in support of his wife's well-earned recognition. And so both of the Curies and Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel Prize, making Marie Curie the first female Nobel Laureate. Well funded and well respected, the Curies were on a roll. But tragedy struck in 1906 when Pierre was crushed by a horse-drawn cart as he crossed a busy intersection. Marie, devastated, immersed herself in her research and took over Pierre's teaching position at the Sorbonne, becoming the school's first female professor. Her solo work was fruitful. In 1911, she won yet another Nobel, this time in chemistry for her earlier discovery of radium and polonium, and her extraction and analysis of pure radium and its compounds. This made her the first, and to this date, only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Professor Curie put her discoveries to work, changing the landscape of medical research and treatments. She opened mobile radiology units during World War I, and investigated radiation's effects on tumors. However, these benefits to humanity may have come at a high personal cost. Curie died in 1934 of a bone marrow disease, which many today think was caused by her radiation exposure. Marie Curie's revolutionary research laid the groundwork for our understanding of physics and chemistry, blazing trails in oncology, technology, medicine, and nuclear physics, to name a few. For good or ill, her discoveries in radiation launched a new era, unearthing some of science's greatest secrets.
若你想要閱讀瑪麗·居禮夫人的手稿 你須簽署切結書並戴上防護衣具 以避免受到放射線的感染 居禮夫人的遺體也葬於鉛襯棺材裡 以阻止放射線外洩 放射線是她的研究重心 有可能也是她喪命主因 居禮夫人生長於 被俄羅斯佔據的波蘭首都華沙 年少時的瑪麗原名為 瑪麗亞·斯克沃多夫斯卡 她是名頂尖的學生,卻遇到不少阻礙 身為女性的她不能接受高等教育 所以,她作了件挑戰之舉 瑪麗申請就讀飛行大學 是所暗中為波蘭青年 提供教育機會的地下學校 一邊存錢,一邊擔任家庭教師 她總算能搬到巴黎 就讀富盛名的索邦大學 瑪麗之後取得物理學與數學學位 求學期間,多靠麵包和茶果腹 有時還因飢餓而暈倒 瑪麗在巴黎遇到物理學家 ──皮埃爾·居禮 他讓瑪麗共用實驗室 也與瑪麗惺惺相惜 不過瑪麗渴望返回波蘭 儘管如此,在她回到華沙後 她發現女人想覓得一份學術工作 仍舊困難重重 塞翁失馬,焉知非福 回巴黎後,皮埃爾仍痴情等待瑪麗 兩個人很快結為連理 成為出色的科學夫妻檔 另位物理學家的研究 激發居禮夫人的興趣 亨利·貝克勒在 1896 年 發現鈾能自發的放射出一種 像 X 射線的神祕放射線 能與感光底片相互作用 沒多久居禮發現釷 也放射出類似的放射線 重點是放射線的強度 全取決於放射元素的數量 且不會受到物理或化學變化的影響 此發現,讓居禮推斷放射線是源自於 每種元素的原子本身 這個顛覆的想法 否定了自古流傳的原子不可分割論 居禮接著把研究重心放在 「瀝青鈾礦」的放射性礦石 居禮夫婦發現鈾本身 無法製造出所有的放射線 因此是不是有 其他放射性元素存在的可能? 1898 年,居禮夫婦發表兩種新元素 一個命名為「釙」 茲以紀念瑪麗的祖國波蘭 另一個則是「鐳」 拉丁文意為射線 兩人也同時創造「放射性」一詞 在 1902 年之前 居禮夫婦已從好幾噸的瀝青鈾礦 萃取出十分之一克的純氯化鐳 在當時是非凡的成就 同年,皮埃爾·居禮與亨利·貝克勒 獲諾貝爾物理獎提名 但卻忽略了瑪麗 皮埃爾極力爭取 支持他太太獲得提名認可 居禮夫婦與亨利·貝克勒 共同獲頒 1903 年的諾貝爾獎 也讓居禮夫人成為 首位授予獎項的女性 居禮夫婦備受尊崇且研究資金豐厚 可說是一帆風順 但 1906 年悲劇發生 當皮埃爾穿越繁忙的十字路口時 被一輛馬車撞上身亡 悲痛至極的瑪麗埋首研究 接手皮埃爾在索邦大學的教職 成為學校首位女教授 居禮夫人的個人研究成果豐厚 1911 年,她獲頒另一個諾貝爾獎 這次是化學獎 表彰她早期發現釙與鐳 與她萃取分析鐳與鐳化合物的貢獻 這次獲獎讓她成為至今 唯一一位贏得兩次 不同學科的諾貝爾獎得主 居禮教授實際應用她的發現 革新醫學研究與治療領域 她在第一次世界大戰期間 設置流動式 X 光機 並研究放射線對腫瘤的影響 不過,對人類的貢獻 卻讓她的健康付出極大代價 居禮夫人於 1934 年 死於骨髓相關的疾病 如今看來應是她長期 暴露於輻射下所造成 瑪麗·居禮革新的研究 為人類對物理與化學的了解奠定基礎 在腫瘤學、科技、醫學 與核子物理學等領域 開創新局 無論好壞 她對放射線的發現 迎接新時代的來臨