why do you think the amphitheatre was packed on the day marie delivered her first lecture
Answers
Winning a Nobel Prize is no easy task. It indicates a command over the chosen subject and ground-breaking efforts backed by results in the field. There aren’t many who have won it two times and there has been only one woman so far who has won it twice. That woman is Marie Curie, a name synonymous with progress in science in general and radioactivity in particular.
The daughter of a teacher, Maria Salomea Sklodowska was born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. Gifted with a potent memory, Maria had to work from a young age owing to bad investments made by her father, a teacher of Mathematics and Physics.
She moved to Paris in 1891, now using the name Marie, and enrolled herself at the Sorbonne University on November 5 the same year. Despite surviving on limited resources, she graduated top of her class – an early indicator of things to come.
The Curies shine
She met Pierre Curie, professor in the School of Physics, in the spring of 1894 and the two got married the following year. Their marriage marked the beginning of a productive partnership that would give them worldwide fame, only to be cut short abruptly by an accident to Pierre.
The Curies built on the discovery of radioactivity by French physicist Henri Becquerel in 1896 and were inspired to perform great researches and analyses, often conducted in tough laboratory conditions. They were rewarded for their efforts as they discovered a new element, polonium (named after Marie’s country of birth), in July 1898, and backed it up with the discovery of another element, radium, by the end of the same year. Along with Becquerel, the Curies were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903.
An abrupt end
Life took a tragic turn in 1906 when Pierre died after he was knocked over and killed by a carriage. Not one to be bogged down, Marie took it upon herself to complete the scientific work that they had set out on, especially as there were growing murmurs questioning some of their findings.
In that same year, she took over his teaching post, becoming the first woman to teach in the Sorbonne. She delivered her maiden lecture on November 5, 1906, in front of a packed hall, including both students and curious onlookers, there to see how the first woman professor would fare.
Delineates developments
Unlike many before her whose first lectures were filled with lavish praise for the predecessor and tall claims in their own field, Marie spoke factually about the developments in physics, with particular emphasis in what had been achieved in the previous decade.
In the years that followed, Marie worked tirelessly, juggling her roles as a single mother, teacher and researcher. She developed methods for the separation of radium in sufficient quantities. This allowed its careful study and characterisation, proving its existence as an element and laying down its properties beyond any doubt. She received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in 1911.
Works for the war effort
Assisted by her elder daughter Irene, Marie devoted herself to remedial work during World War I. Her research was crucial in the use of X-rays for surgery and she personally helped ambulances to be equipped with these devices, even driving them to the front lines on occasions.
Marie’s health began to deteriorate in the late 1920s and prolonged exposure to high-energy radiation implied that she developed leukaemia – a cancer of the blood-forming tissues that eventually led to her death on July 4, 1934. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize had by then done enough in her lifetime to be admired and respected by generations to come.
Answer:
I also want to know the answer of this question