Marie Curie Books

Easton Press Marie Curie books:
Milestones in Medicine: On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in animals / Vaccination Against Smallpox / Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine & on the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery / Radioactive Substances - Books That Changed The World - 2006

 

 

Radioactive Substances
The pioneering scientist’s doctoral thesis on radioactivity that won her the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1896, Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered the first evidence of radioactivity. Inspired by the physicist’s work, Marie Curie began investigating this phenomenon further with the help of her husband, Pierre. For four years, the couple researched various minerals and substances for radioactivity, a term she coined. In Radioactive Substances , Curie outlines with great detail her painstaking research and discoveries, which include the elements radium and polonium. Due to their breakthroughs, Marie and Pierre were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, the first of two for Marie.

In 1911, Marie Curie received the Nobel prize in chemistry for isolating radium. This profound distinction literally cost the scientist her life, for she ultimately died from exposure to the deadly rays from the element she and her husband discovered. Here is her story, recounted in her own words, of the momentous discovery and her further investigation of radioactive substances. Born in Poland in 1867, Marie Sklodowska enrolled at the Sorbonne after the University of Warsaw refused her admission because of her gender. There she not only earned her master's degree and doctorate in physics but also became the first woman faculty member in the school's history. In this memoir, she recounts the struggles and triumphs of a life dedicated to the study of science, in a tale whose truth makes it more gripping and poignant than any fiction.

The object of the present work is the publication of researches which I have been carrying on for more than four years on radio-active bodies. I began these researches by a study of the phosphorescence of uranium, discovered by M. Becquerel. The results to which I was led by this work promised to afford so interesting a field that Pierre Curie put aside the work on which he was engaged, and joined me, our object being the extraction of new radio-active substances and the further study of their properties.