From the first female professor to the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize Marie Curie was able to forever change the way women were viewed in the scientific community , and was able to be a role model for thousands of women in the years following her death. With his discovery of radium and the effects of radiation there have been giant strides in the progress towards cancer cure and related treatments. Despite everything against her, Marie Curie was able to be the most impactful woman in the history of science thanks to all her achievements. Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Maria was only eight years old when tragedy first struck her life: her older sister fell ill with typhus and died. Just three years later, his mother, Madame Sklodowska, died at the age of 42 after a five-year battle with tuberculosis. Later in life she also lost her husband in a freak accident. The only people she still had in her life that she was very close to were her father, Professor Sklodowski, and her siblings Joseph, Bronya, and Hela. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Marie was the brightest in her class. His personal losses did not negatively affect his academic life. However, when she graduated at the age of 15, she was not allowed to attend the medical school of the University of Warsaw, because women were not admitted, where she wished to obtain an advanced degree. She then attended the Sorbonne where she quickly realized that she was nowhere near as advanced in math, science and French as her fellow students were. However, he persevered, through hard work and motivation. “Marie finished first in the undergraduate physics program in the summer of 1893 and second in mathematics the following year.” Despite being as poor as she was, Marie managed to study. One of her professors saw her potential and was able to get her a scholarship to continue studying. It was then that she moved to France and met her future husband, Pierre Curie. “In Marie, Pierre has found an equal with comparable devotion to science. They would soon get married and have two daughters.” They worked together in Pierre's workshop, where he gave Marie her space. Together, the Curies' work and research on radium would receive a Nobel Prize in 1903. The Curies then published all the processes needed to isolate radium and did not file for a patent. about all of this, showing how generous they truly were and how they actually just wanted to improve society. Radium was hugely successful and many people began to study it: “On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen at the University of Würzburg discovered a new type of radiation which he called X-rays.” This new X-ray discovery was incredible: people think Roentgen is crazy. But his discovery opened up an entirely new method of viewing the inside of a body, which led to the invention of CT scans and the ability to spot cancer inside a patient along with a way to image atoms. This discovery has affected millions of people and still affects people today and will continue in times to come. The impact of the discovery of radium was enormous. “With the discovery of radium and polonium there occurred a rapid and, initially, completely uncontrolled use of radium in all fields of life and medicine. However, this did not come without cost, due to Marie's long time spent with the radioactive material, which caused many health problems. Even when he was struggling with his health he managed to benefit society and,,