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- Marie Curie was
- one of the greatest
- scientists of her
- age. She had an
- insatiable hunger
- for knowledge,
- with an immense
- capacity for work
- needed to satisfy
- such a hunger
- #
- Marie's marriage to
- Pierre Curie proved
- a very fruitful
- alliance for the
- cause of science.
- He was already
- a distinguished
- physicist who had
- made advances in
- magnetism and in
- the physics of
- crystals, and their
- daughter went on
- to further their
- joint discoveries
- #
- Marie Curie was a
- woman in a man's
- world. She worked
- under laboratory
- conditions which
- would be con-
- demned today, and
- (as colleagues
- recalled) always
- kept in sight the
- goal of science:
- to bring benefit
- to humankind
- #
- Honors were
- showered on both
- Madame Curie and
- her husband. Two
- Nobel Prizes and
- several academics
- prizes were
- followed, after the
- death of Mr Curie,
- by the foundation
- of the Pierre Curie
- Institute at the
- Sorbonne
- #
- In the Thirties
- radium began to be
- widely used in
- hospitals as a
- treatment for
- cancer. Marie Curie
- was aware that
- small doses of
- uranium attacked
- cancerous cells
- without harming
- healthy tissue
- #
- Radiation has been
- a mixed blessing to
- humankind. It is
- both a killer and a
- powerful medical
- tool. Marie Curie
- understood its dual
- nature, and she
- eventually became
- a victim of it
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