Being one of the most important women in history, Marie Curie contributed much to science and the world, despite the difficulties she faced throughout her life life. His discoveries, polonium and radium, and the work he did with radioactivity laid the foundation for today's science. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Marie was born Marya Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, to Bronsitwa Skłodowska and Ladislas Sklodowski, a professor of mathematics and physics, who both believed that education was of great importance. Marie was born in a time when Poland was rebelling against Russian rule and was already in difficult circumstances. Russian authorities prohibited practical instruction in schools, so her father brought his laboratory home, beginning Marie's lifelong love of science. From a young age, Marie pursued science and mathematics passionately and was bright and studious. But as a woman and Polish, it was an obstacle for her to follow that dream. In the words of Des Jardins (2011), “Curie worked during a great era of innovation, but real women of her time were thought to be too sentimental to carry out objective science.” Even though she was a woman, Curie was still able to contribute to the modern era of scientific innovation. Later, after high school, she was not allowed to attend Warsaw University, since she was a woman, but she did not let this stop her from studying, so for five years she worked as a governess. and tutors to raise money for tuition to attend the Sorbonne, a major university in Paris. There he studied hard, despite the poor conditions in which he lived. She earned her bachelor's degree in physics in 1893, the first to finish in her class, then in 1894 her master's degree. The same year she received her master's degree, she was introduced to Pierre and they married in July 1895. They were both physics graduates and worked together and made important scientific discoveries. Marie's radiation work truly began after she married Pierre and had his daughter Iréne. It was based on the work of physicists Antoine-Henri Becquerel and Wilhelm Roentgen. Becquerel discovered radioactivity and that uranium produces beams of radiation with strong and abundant energy. Roentgen discovered and produced electromagnetic radiation into Roentgen/X-rays. Curie's goal was to find substances and elements that emitted radiation just like uranium. Radiation is the emission of energy through electromagnetic waves or high-energy subatomic particles. His hypothesis was that “this radiation came from the atom itself as a kind of disintegration while common belief emphasized the indivisibility of the atom.” The Curies decided to use pitchblende to conduct research, which contains high concentrations of radioactive minerals, the perfect material to work with. From pitchblende they extracted polonium, to which he gave the name of his country of origin. The Curies continued their work after that discovery, which required a lot of effort. The pitchblende therefore had to be separated little by little and minutely measured as accurately as possible. Marie and Pierre played different roles: Marie would perform the extremely demanding work of physically separating the pitchblende she had collected from a mine in Poland, and Pierre would analyze the physical and chemical properties of the pitchblende compounds that Marie had separated. All that hard work paid off when, six months later, they discovered the second radioactive element, radium. However, with their success in radioactivity (coined by Marie) and their hard work, the salary.