Read on Twitter
#TriviaThursday 122 years ago this month, in December of 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie announced the Radium element to the world. Today's trivia series will be about their lives and discoveries. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday One common misconception about Marie Curie is that she was French, so we'll clear that up first: Maria Salomea Skłodowska was born November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Congress Poland -- a kingdom which was then part of the Russian Empire. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday 'Congress Poland' had been created out of the French-dominated Duchy of Warsaw, but dissolved when Marie was a baby. As a child, little Maria was nicknamed "Manya" by her parents, 4 elder siblings, and friends. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Maria's father, Wladyslaw Skłodowski, taught mathematics & physics at 2 Warsaw schools, but Russian authorities shut down his laboratory studies. As the lab equipment was no longer allowed at his gymnasia, he brought it home for his children to use. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Also a member of the intelligentsia (in Polish: inteligencja), Maria's mother Bronislawa Boguska-Skłodowska (1836-1878) ran a prestigious boarding school for girls, but sadly died of tuberculosis when Maria / Manya was only ten years old. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday After graduating from school with honors, young Maria Skłodowska suffered 'nervous illness' (what we'd likely today call depression). She lived in the countryside with paternal cousins during recovery, then began work as a tutor when back in Warsaw. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Maria had great scientific aptitude and hoped to study chemistry, but institutions of higher learning of the time (circa 1884) refused to admit women. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Sklodowska instead took night classes at the famed "Floating University" (1885-1905), so called because they changed locations each week or month to avoid detection by Russian forces occupying Poland. Imagine trying to study under those conditions?! #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday In 1891, Maria moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris with her elder sister Bronya, then styling herself as "Marie" instead of Manya. She worked as a governess to put her sister through medical school, & Bronya in turn helped Maria fund her schooling. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Marie studied physics & chemistry at the Sorbonne in Paris https://goo.gl/dGXAVJ while renting a small, often freezing cold room. She had little food & slept under every bit of clothing she owned to keep warm, but earned 2 science degrees in 4 years! #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Her work in physics won Marie Sklodowska an industrial commission to investigate properties & compositions of various steels. So, she needed a lab! The hunt led her to the ESPCI https://goo.gl/ijaFbY where she met physicist Pierre Curie in 1894. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Marie fell in love and Pierre proposed marriage, but she returned to her family as she had planned. She hoped enough had changed in Poland so that she could earn a living, but was refused teaching positions in science because she was a woman. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Pierre continued to send letters, saying he would move to Poland to be with her -- even if it meant being "reduced to teaching French." Marie moved back to Paris, and in 1895, married Pierre in Sceaux (where there is now a school named for her). #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Instead of a bridal gown, Marie Curie wore a blue dress that would for many years be her standard laboratory outfit. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday Curie studied 2 uranium minerals, chalcolite & pitchblende, and sought additional elements that emit radiation. In 1897, she discovered the element thorium was radioactive. Pierre then dropped his own work to join hers. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday By 1898, their joint hunting for "radioactivity" -- a term they coined -- resulted in discovery of "Polonium" (Po), atomic number 84, which they named for Manya's belovedd Polish homeland, which would only be free two decades later. #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday They next turned up a chemical element that would come to be called "Radium" (Ra), atomic number 88, now the 6th element in group 2 of the periodic table (known as alkaline earth metals). #MarieCurie
#TriviaThursday #MarieCurie Over the years, the Curies studied many radioactive compounds and noted their "spectral lines" (emissions of light in a frequency range compared with nearby frequencies) which had never before been documented. Spectral Lines for Radium:
#TriviaThursday Divisions in the spectrums are "fingerprints" of sorts, which can be compared to known spectral lines and are thus used to identify the atomic and molecular components of stars & planets (which would otherwise be impossible). #MarieCurie
