Marie Curie

Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, developed and introduced the concept of radioactivity to the world. Working under primitive laboratory conditions, they investigated the nature of high energy rays that are spontaneously produced by certain elements. They also collaborated on the isolation of two new radioactive elements, polonium and radium. When the Curies shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1903, Marie Curie became its first female recipient; she was later one of the few scientists to win the award twice. Before Pierre Curie joined his wife in the study of radioactivity, he had codiscovered piezoelectricity (producing an electrical field by applying stress to crystals) and invented the quartz balance.

Marie Curie was born Marya Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland,...