第2个回答 2012-12-23
Marie Curie, or rather Marya Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. At the time, the Polish capital was occupied by the Russians, who were seeking to weaken the local élite but nonetheless tolerated the burgeoning of the positivist doctrine advocated by Auguste Comte. Based on the value of experience and scientific reality, and applied to society, it was for many intellectuals the path of progress; it was to leave an indelible mark on Marya. Born into a family of teachers and brought up in an environment marked by a sense of duty and a lack of money, she led the most Spartan of lives. From the premature death of one of her sisters, and later of her mother, she drew the agnosticism that would later bolster her faith in science. As a brilliant and mature student with a rare gift of concentration, Marya harboured the dream of a scientific career, a concept inconceivable for a woman at that time. But lack of funds meant she was forced to become a private tutor. She made huge financial sacrifices so that her sister Bronia could fulfil her wish of studying medicine in Paris, nurturing the hope that the favour might be returned.
And so, in 1891, the shy Marya arrived in Paris. Ambitious and self-taught, she had but one obsession: to learn. She passed a physics degree with flying colours, and went on to sit a mathematics degree. It was then that a Polish friend introduced her to Pierre Curie, a young man, shy and introvert. In 1895, this free-thinker, acknowledged for his work on crystallography and magnetism, became her husband. One year previously, he had written to her saying how nice it would be "to spend life side by side, in the sway of our dreams: your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream and our scientific dream."
In her pioneering way, Marie Curie decided, in 1897, to take a physics doctorate. Henri Becquerel, who was studying X-rays, had recently observed that uranium salt left an impression on a photographic plate in spite of its protective envelope. What better subject could there have been for Marie than to try and understand the effect, the energy of these uranic rays? Pierre consented. And so his frail wife set about her work, handling tons of minerals; she noted that another substance, thorium, was "radioactive", a term she herself had coined. Together, they demonstrated in a major discovery that radioactivity was not the result of a chemical reaction but a property of the element or, more specifically, of the atom. Marie then studied pitchblende, a uranic mineral in which she measured a much more intense activity than is present in uranium alone. She deduced that there were other substances besides uranium that were very radioactive, such as polonium and radium, which she discovered in 1898.
In their experiments, Pierre observed the properties of the radiation while Marie, for her part, purified the radioactive elements. Both shared the same, uncanny tenacity, which was all the more admirable given their deplorable living conditions. Their laboratory was nothing more than a miserable hangar, where in winter the temperature dropped to around six degrees. One chemist commented that "it looked more like a stable or a potato cellar". And yet, Marie admitted that "one of our pleasures was to enter our workshop at night; then, all around us, we would see the luminous silhouettes of the beakers and capsules that contained our products". Despite their difficulty at obtaining any advances or loans, Marie and Pierre Curie refused to file a patent application that would have secured them financially; in their eyes, enabling any scientist, French or foreign, to find applications for radioactivity took priority.
Pierre tested radium on his skin. It caused a burn, and then a wound: its effect on man was thus proven. Soon radium was being used to treat malign tumours: Curietherapy was born. In 1903, Marie defended her thesis. Together with Becquerel, the Curies were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of natural radioactivity. Their happiness was short lived. In 1906, Pierre, weakened by radiation and overworked, was run over by a car. Marie was forced to continue alone. She took charge of educating her two children; she took up the position which her husband had finally obtained at the Sorbonne, and thus became the first woman to be appointed professor there.
She also had to fight the prejudices of her day: hatred of foreigners and sexism which, in 1911, prevented her from entering the Academy of Science. And yet, soon after, she was honoured with a Nobel Prize for Chemistry for determining the atomic weight of radium. But her real joy was "easing human suffering". The founding of the Radium Institute by the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute in 1914 would enable her to fulfil her humanitarian wish.
But then war broke out. "We must act, act," she would say, motivating her daughter Irène to follow suit. She felt that X-rays would help to locate shrapnel and bullets, and facilitate surgery; also, that it was important not to move the wounded, whenever possible. And so she created X-ray vans. But she did not stop there, and went on to provide equipment for hospitals. The only protection at that time was a metal screen and fabric gloves. All she needed to do was convince reticent doctors and find well-trained manipulators. No sooner said than done. Marie trained 150 female manipulators.
With the war over, she went back to work in her institute, with Irène by her side. Marie ran the research laboratory while Dr Claudius Regaud headed the applied biology laboratory. Their co-operation proved harmonious, sharing as they did similar ideals and the same disinterest in financial matters. Physicians and chemists provided the radium, and physicists treated cancer patients. Marie set about collecting funds and raw materials, the price of which had soared, going as far afield as the United States; but she found it hard to accept that dark economic interests should prevail.
Marie died of leukaemia in July, 1934, exhausted and almost blinded, her fingers burnt and stigmatised by "her" dear radium. This sixty-seven-year-old woman, who, according to Dr Claudius Regaud, "under a cold exterior and the utmost reserve (...) concealed in reality an abundance of delicate and generous feelings", had been exposed to incredible levels of radiation. Other researchers after her, her daughter in particular, would also pay the price. In January, together with her husband, Frédéric Joliot, Irène, who had been working in the same laboratory and with the same relentless determination as her mother, discovered artificial radioactivity, for which she, too, was awarded the Nobel Prize. Radioactivity is the starting point for cancer treatment, for the dating techniques used on ancient objects, rocks and the universe, and for molecular biology and modern genetics; it is also the source of nuclear energy and the atomic bomb. The other side of the coin...本回答被提问者采纳