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Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for research on radioactivity and won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alone, for discovering the elements polonium and radium. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and she is still the only one to win in two different sciences.

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She was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867, when Poland was under Russian rule and women could not study at university there, so in 1891 she moved to Paris. With her husband, Pierre, she found that uranium ore gave off more radiation than its uranium alone could explain, and traced the extra to two new elements. She named the first polonium, after Poland. The 1903 prize was shared with Henri Becquerel, who had discovered radioactivity. The committee first planned to honour only the two men, until the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler alerted Pierre, who insisted that Marie be included. After Pierre was run over by a horse-drawn wagon in Paris in 1906, she took over his post and became the first woman professor at the University of Paris. Her daughter Irène won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935.

Türkçe oku
Marie Curie, 1903 Nobel Fizik Ödülü'nü radyoaktivite üzerine yaptığı araştırmalarla paylaştı; 1911 Nobel Kimya Ödülü'nü ise polonyum ve radyum elementlerini keşfettiği için tek başına aldı. İki Nobel kazanan ilk kişi odur; iki ayrı bilim dalında Nobel alan tek kişi de hâlâ odur.

Maria Skłodowska adıyla 1867'de Varşova'da doğdu. Polonya o sırada Rus yönetimindeydi ve kadınlar orada üniversitede okuyamıyordu; bu yüzden 1891'de Paris'e gitti. Eşi Pierre ile birlikte, uranyum cevherinin içindeki uranyumla açıklanamayacak kadar çok ışınım yaydığını fark etti ve bu fazlalığın iki yeni elementten geldiğini buldu. İlkine, vatanı Polonya'nın adını vererek polonyum dedi. 1903 ödülünü, radyoaktiviteyi keşfeden Henri Becquerel ile paylaştılar. Komite başta ödülü yalnızca iki erkeğe vermeyi düşünüyordu; İsveçli matematikçi Gösta Mittag-Leffler durumu Pierre'e haber verdi, Pierre de Marie'nin adının eklenmesi için diretti. Pierre 1906'da Paris'te bir at arabasının altında kalarak ölünce Marie onun kürsüsünü devraldı ve Paris Üniversitesi'nde profesör olan ilk kadın oldu. Kızı Irène de 1935'te Nobel Kimya Ödülü'nü kazandı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Marie Curie
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